The Future of Africa’s Agriculture; An Assessment of the role of Youth and Technology in Agriculture | Research report in 11 African countries
Agriculture contributes significantly to the GDP of many African countries and employs more than half of the continent’s rural population . Despite the positive impact of agriculture across the continent, it remains unappealing to young people.
Furthermore, the rural population, which consists primarily of smallholder farmers, practices subsistence farming, and many faces significant uncertainties as a result of farming. Climate change, a lack of technology, illiteracy, and a lack of opportunities all pose significant threats to farmers’ sources of income.
To fully understand the perception of stakeholders towards these challenges, we carried out a study in eleven African countries (East Africa: Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. West Africa: Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal. Southern Africa: Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.).
The goal was to understand why young people were not interested in pursuing agriculture, the reasons behind low productivity and low technology adoption among smallholder farmers, the barriers to technology adoption and the innovation in agriculture on the continent.
Survey responses were received from 29,954 youths, 299 smallholder farmers and 110agric-focused organizations. The research indicated a very low agricultural tech adoption across the surveyed countries with only 23% of youth engaged in agriculture using any form of agricultural technology (an App, SMS, website, software).
The research identified funding, training and access to agriculture technology as the three key areas to support youth interested in agriculture.
The research aided in the development of a business case for the Heifer AYuTe Africa Challenge. AYuTe identifies young, creative entrepreneurs who have launched promising new technology solutions to transform African agriculture for smallholder farmers.
