|
Partnerships play a crucial role in the development and implementation of digital agriculture solutions in Africa. These partnerships bring together diverse stakeholders, including farmers, government agencies, private companies, and research institutions, to share knowledge, resources, and expertise. Partnerships can help to bridge the digital divide and ensure that the benefits of digital agriculture are accessible to all. By working together, partners can leverage their strengths and overcome challenges to drive innovation and growth in the sector, ultimately helping improve the livelihoods of farmers and contribute to the overall development of the agricultural sector in Africa.
We’re excited to spotlight two partnerships:
Sprout and the CGIAR Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) initiative have launched a strategic partnership, joining hands to unleash open digital agriculture advisory content and precision advisory services for farmer facing organizations (FFOs) and the millions of smallholder farmers (SHFs) they serve across Nigeria. Sprout will support EiA to digitize deep researched specific value chain agronomic content for Nigeria using human centered design principles. The content will also be translated in specific local languages. This digital content will then be utilized by Farmer facing organizations (FFOs) in disseminating content to SHFs through multiple channels: such as smart phone-based chat applications (WhatsApp/ Facebook), SMS and IVR technology depending on relevance and channel adoption in Nigeria. This digital content will be designed to be high quality, farmer specific with a strong focus on gender specificity and climate smart agriculture techniques. Sprout is also keen to scale its digital weather advisory solution capabilities for Nigerian farmers, enabling them to build resilience against weather risks and better prepare for changing growing patterns. You can learn more about this strategic partnership here.
Shambapride is providing agriculture best practices to over 20,000 green gram and poultry farmers using Sprout content. The content is being disseminated to agro dealers and farmers. Shambapride highlighted that; “Agro dealers are rarely trained on agronomy or animal husbandry as the focus of those who train them is mostly on business fundamentals. Agro dealers have been providing feedback that SMS based delivery of relevant value chain content helps them to understand the basics of these value chains which enables them to serve farmers better when they visit their shops. For instance, a farmer who is starting out on poultry will often ask a lot of questions to the agro dealer who is a trusted source of information. Sprout content is well curated. Agro dealers also mentioned that being a seller of various poultry products, the content also helps the agro dealer to understand the uses of equipment better.”- Patrick Sampao, Chief Product Officer. Shambapride would like to increase the reach to 100,000
|
