Microsoft is partnering with OCP Africa through its Africa Transformation Office (ATO), with the goal of positively impacting smallholder farmers and Agri-stakeholders across Africa by 2025. OCP Africa, an African company that provides fertilizer solutions tailored to local conditions as well as the needs of soils and crops throughout the continent, will collaborate with Microsoft to strengthen and scale its digital agriculture platform. This platform improves farmer productivity while allowing them to better manage their businesses.
“In this time of increasing food insecurity, enhancing the resilience and livelihoods for smallholder farmers is needed to drive increased agriculture productivity, including reducing losses in the food production chain. With the increasing impacts of more frequent extreme weather events, adaptation, and resilience are of crucial importance to the food system’s transformation,” said Wael Elkabbany, General Manager for Microsoft Africa Regional Cluster.
The announcement was made in Doha, Qatar at the 5th United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries. The collaboration will enable smallholder farmers to gain access to skilling and information through Agri-digital services, leveraging OCP Africa programs such as the Farmer Hub concept to support millions of farmers. OCP Africa will also collaborate with Microsoft to explore the use of big data, machine learning, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to build their data and AI platform to improve operational efficiency and better serve ecosystem stakeholders.
On his part, the CEO of OCP Africa Dr. Mohamed Anouar Jamali said: “African agriculture is at a transformational moment in its history – and a time of incredible possibility and promise for farmers and industry alike. Digitizing agricultural practices in Africa allows smallholder farmers to optimize their decision-making, which in turn helps optimize production. The partnership between OCP Africa and Microsoft will allow us to increase the services provided and scale up our digital agriculture platform, expand our reach, and make an even bigger impact on food security across the continent.”
Collaboration with African AgriTech startups, agricultural firms, and partners to increase access to technology, skills, and agricultural knowledge is expected to optimize the industry and generate new revenue streams that will ensure global food security. The adoption and integration of technologies such as the Cloud, AI, Agri Data Platforms, and Azure App modernization into the agricultural space is also expected to deliver transformation in the form of precision agriculture.
“We believe that precision farming, brought about by the adoption of advanced technologies into the agricultural sector, will revolutionize food production and help to eliminate hunger and poverty in Africa. Technology is the key factor in enabling and increasing access to finance, equipment, and sustainability for rural farmers, empowering local farmers in Africa. Our partnership with OCP Africa will help to directly impact smallholder farmers and improve production,” added Elkabbany.
Microsoft has selected The Awareness Company as the winner of its AgriChallenge competition. The Awareness Company will receive investments from Microsoft to configure, develop, educate, market and contextualise three high-impact agritech products within the next year to empower smallholder farmers in South Africa.
We want to help unlock the potential of one of South Africa’s core industries and its smallholder farmers by tapping into the capabilities of agritech. By investing in local businesses and technologies that are truly disruptive says Lillian Barnard, CEO of Microsoft South Africa.
“Technology – specifically agritech – has the ability to empower our country’s smallholder farmers. By enabling them to become more productive, efficient, competitive, commercially viable and sustainable.”
Lillian Barnard, CEO of Microsoft South Africa.
Microsoft notes the solutions will enable smallholder farmers to improve efficiencies in their farming operations through the use of operational insights. Allowing them to reduce the cost of production, increase yields, strengthen linkages through the value chain and improve farm security.
Priaash Ramadeen, CEO of The Awareness Company says Microsoft’s support and investment is a jump-start. Noting smallholder farmers play a critical role in driving food security.
“The country’s two to four million smallholder farmers play a critical role in driving food security and economic participation. But they face specific and deep-rooted challenges, and the sector is typically underserved in terms of high-tech solutions.
That’s why Microsoft’s support and investment in helping us as a local, homegrown business to grow and develop solutions that focus on solving real-world problems is so meaningful. The programme is a jump-start that has enabled us to create and update products that synchronise with the work we have already done in the agricultural space to promote sustainable agriculture and food security through intelligent data.”
Priaash Ramadeen, Co-Founder and CEO of The Awareness Company.
The solutions developed by The Awareness Company includes HYDRA FarmSecurity, HYDRA FarmAwareness and HYDRA AgriInsights. All of these solutions are driven by data, and the insights and intelligence tell a story about the farm. Click to find out more about the solutions.
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Agritech startups in Africa will be eligible to win up to 1.5 million dollars at the seventh edition of the Pitch AgriHack competition. Pitch AgriHack is a pitching contest aimed exclusively at African businesses bringing technological innovation to the agriculture sector. Organized by AGRF and Heifer International, the competition focuses on accelerating entrepreneurial growth and job creation in the agriculture sector by leveraging advanced technologies and youth participation in Africa’s food security agenda.
The open competition portion of Pitch AgriHack 2021 will support companies that are driving innovation in agriculture across three categories-Early-stage, Mature/Growth-stage, and Women-led, with prizes totalling US$45,000. A fourth invite-only category known as the AYuTe Africa Challenge, sponsored by Heifer International, will award up to $1.5 million in grants to scalable ventures that are already generating measurable impact for Africa’s smallholder farmers.
Six winners will be selected from the open-application categories and two winners from the invite-only AYuTe Africa Challenge category. The winners will be announced at the AGRF Summit which takes place September 7-10 in Nairobi. Top contestants will receive a one-day boot camp in preparation for their final pitches. Winners will get continued support to develop and grow their enterprises.
“As a continent with a thriving youth population, Africa’s agricultural sector must look to its youth for the innovation that will fuel the future growth of this strategically important sector,” said Adesuwa Ifedi, Senior Vice President for Africa Programs at Heifer International. “Integrating youth and technology in the agricultural sector will transform the continent, creating new jobs and income-generating opportunities for young Africans”.
In addition to its sponsorship of Pitch AgriHack 2021, Heifer International is partnering with Generation Africa to run this year’s competition. Both organizations have a shared vision of eradicating hunger and poverty through sustainable, community-led development that begins with agriculture.
“It’s a privilege to have an established and experienced non-profit organization like Heifer International on board,” said Head of Generation Africa, Dickson Naftali. “At Generation Africa, we believe that food systems can change if we collaboratively support young African agri-food entrepreneurs. Pitch AgriHack 2021 can give access to the tools and expertise they need to make their businesses successful.”
Dr. Agnes Kalibata, President of AGRA and Special Envoy to the UN Food Systems Summit, said, “We are excited to welcome Heifer International as it partners with the AGRF and Generation Africa on Pitch AgriHack 2021. By working together, sharing knowledge, and supporting mutually beneficial projects, we can make a bigger impact and drive agricultural transformation in Africa. We want young people across Africa to hear our message – the future of food and farming depends on them.”
Business profiles of the finalists will also be published in a Deal Book for circulation at the AGRF and online, while individual profiles will be made public on the GenAfrica.org platform and reviewed for relevance to their investor community.
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Every year at CES, the global stage for innovation, you see some ‘oh wow’ breakthrough technologies. This AI-powered planting system by New Garden Co., Ltd., a Taiwanese startup is one. Meet the ULTRON Smart AI Gardener, a self-caring planting system controlled by AI.
It is a self-caring plant container with AI service supported by the UltronSMART Agriculture Platform and App. The platform supports real-time collection, process, analysis, and visualization of data from various IoT devices. Leveraging a technology it calls AIoT ecosystem.
The plant pot [conatiner] is embedded with smart lighting, a watering system, and multiple connected sensors. Which can be taken as a microcosm of a Cloud-to-edge Smart Agriculture System powered by ULTRON.
New Garden says, by cooperating with agriculture experts, the UltronSMART AI Gardener can automatically grow any plants with almost zero effort.
Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) selected the company as one of the 100 featured Taiwanese startups to showcase at CES 2021.
Check out how the AI powered smart garden works from the video below. Tell us what you think as well in the comments.
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Farmer’s Choice is scaling up the use of advanced technologies within its existing agriculture ecosystem in new partnership with Microsoft.
This will enhance productivity, ensure food safety and quality, as well as reduce waste.
The move by the 40-year old company has been informed by their quest to adopt sustainable farming practices, including increasing the adoption of cloud solutions to improve food quality and security.
“Customers are our priority, and we owe them quality excellence,” says Flora Kinuthia, CIO of Farmer’s Choice.
The coordination of all activities in Microsoft cloud solutions gives the company unmatched visibility over the entire life cycle of meat production, allowing it to respond to supply and demand changes proactively.
“We need to ensure we stay efficient in terms of pricing, wastage, and the use of products in the factory. Therefore, food traceability is especially important to us.”
According to World Bank estimates, food production and processing in Africa currently generates over $300 billion annually. With the continent at large embracing digitally transforming, this figure is only set to rise to $1 trillion a year by 2030 if farmers are given the right access to inputs and resources.
“Working with organisations within the sector, forming partnerships that will benefit individuals in the space and facilitate scaling has allowed for these numbers to become more of a likely reality. In Kenya, Microsoft has partnered with Farmer’s Choice to improve food quality and security,” says Judemark Bwire, Azure Specialist for East and Southern Africa at Microsoft.
According to Eric Muga, the Senior Database Administrator at Farmer’s Choice, the cloud-based solutions help to streamline the information flow between all departments, making vital data accessible to all users, starting from the initial data capture on the farms.
“We have IoT (internet of things) readers that capture data to use with Dynamics 365 Business Central. The procurement management needs to see what is happening on the farms. And the farm management system is completely outside of where we are seated,” Muga explains.
“So, everybody connects to a central location to upload the captured data and work with it.”
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The company’s tech stack also includes automation, which runs on Azure and minimizes human error. Previously, a person would weigh animals and write down the scores manually. This could lead to missing weights or incorrect data that jeopardized decision-making.
“Now, we capture data directly from the main scale, without human intervention, in real-time and with virtually no errors,” he explains further.
Accurate tracking and recordkeeping also benefit the company’s suppliers, who can keep pace with fluctuating inventory levels to match customer expectations.
“We can move fast through operations, updating the system in real-time. We give our salespeople mobile devices so they can take orders and communicate to customers what products are available on the floor,” says Annie Mugumo, Management Accountant at Farmer’s Choice. “This leads to happier customers.”
From a financial perspective, the cloud-based infrastructure generates significant savings. “There have been some running costs in our IT department, like server maintenance or storage. These are now things of the past,” she observes.
Judemark from Microsoft concluded: “Digitally transforming the agriculture space has always been a key priority for our organisation. With Microsoft cloud solutions, Farmer’s Choice can remain focused on sustainability and efficiency as it looks toward the future.”
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