Agricultural Challenges : Digital Solutions Underway

Digital agricultural technologies can support a smooth and efficient transition to sustainability and climate resilience. Technological innovations and increasing digitalisation - such as mobile technologies and Internet access, satellites and weather stations, drones, remote sensing technologies - have the potential to accelerate the transformation of agriculture and can help address the urgent challenges posed by climate change to agriculture and food security in Africa. Agriculture is the backbone of most African economies and the sector employs more than half of the continent's population. The sector faces many challenges related to climate change, which is expected to negatively affect 56% of all crops in sub-Saharan Africa by 2050.
Against this background, the Global Centre for Adaptation (GCA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) have organised a two-day capacity building programme on "Digital Climate Advisory Services (DCAS)". The training, which kicked off in Douala on 25 April, aimed to "Support Climate Resilience of Smallholder Farmers in Central Africa". The training brought together stakeholders from Ministries of Agriculture, related government agencies, research institutions, agri-tech companies, farmer organisations and non-profit organisations working on climate adaptation for food security in Central Africa to design and implement digital climate services projects to address the challenges of the agricultural sector in this sub-region.
Reasons why the Senior Programme Officer, Food Security-GCA, Oluwabanmi Ajilore said they are working to ensure that climate resilience is mainstreamed into Africa development funding and projects across Africa. He said that capacity building has taken p...