For the past two years, the pandemic has affected tremendously to many economic sectors. The absence of human resources has tragically affected the ongoing workloads for African agriculture, causing challenges regarding labor and transporting or exporting produces to markets. Thanks to technology implementation, the difficulties somehow being reduced, and the farming management proceeds at a controlled pace. We’re heading to 2022, so let’s see how innovative technology can create trends to improve agricultural performance in Africa.
1. Remote sensing
The accuracy of keeping track of surrounding factors needs to be enhanced since it is unpredictable and risky to realize late harmful events affect the crops. More accurately, the on-ground sensor monitoring points will have more sensible technology such as keeping track of the CO2 emissions, dehydration, potential plague, and pH balance ratio of the soil. Africa has a reputation for harsh land conditions, challenging with a long history of non-regenerative farming methods, so developing more innovative technology for remote sensing will benefit the final yield result. Many farming associations and foreign corporations have already paid attention to this and effectively implemented this technology to its fullest potential.
2. Better resolution Aerial Imagery
Since its introduction to the market several years ago, aerial imagery’s usage in production agriculture has continued to grow and evolve. There are currently various applications for this technology on farms, thanks to substantial advances in how imagery is acquired and processed, as well as the quality of photos accessible. With so many options for taking aerial imagery, it’s critical to understand the distinctions and applications so you can make the right selection for your business. UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones), manned aircraft (usually small planes), and satellite-delivered imagery are the three main choices for aerial imagery in the agricultural industry (according to Iowa State University). Aerial imagery data for agricultural management has a potential rise in 2022 since many agritech companies like Aerobotics in South Africa and AcquahMeyer in Ghana solve agricultural problems with aerial imagery through drones. The drone has proved to be a useful tool for farmers to keep track of their crop health through specialized sensors to acknowledge normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), leaf area index, and photochemical reflectance index. Besides, satellite imagery data will continue booming with higher resolutions and more detailed information through each tracking image for better crop management (find details here).
3. Sustainable agricultural management
The evidence of climate change has become clearer and enough to alert farmers to implement a regenerative strategy in their farming management. It is not about the short-term usage that destroys the soil condition because farming lands are in the harmful state of being mistreated through traditional agricultural techniques. With the urgent of provide farming produce to meet the growing pace of the world population, a sustainable farming strategy is more important than ever because if we run out of land for crops to grow, humans will suffer massive hunger due to the lack of usable growing lands. Negatively, land degradation has affected 650 million people with the risk of an effect on nearby land areas (soil nutrition, land quality, crops). A report shows that by 2030, Africa’s regenerative practices could add more than $15bn in gross value added per year and can increase up to $70bn by 2040, which is one-fifth of the current agricultural GDP of the sub-Saharan Africa area. Therefore, implementing regenerative and sustainable farming strategy and als method is crucially important, and will be a trend in 2022.
CONCLUSION
The different categories of technology developments beneficial for the African agricultural sector have been widely accepted, acknowledged, and implemented, so the next step for all stakeholders is to focus on optimization and higher technological quality with specific features with a high accuracy rate. Besides, all stakeholders should not neglect to update and educate all African farmers who have a challenging obstacles or conditions to access such technology and knowledge.
