REPORT: GROWING USE OF ICT IN AGRICULTURE HELPING TO "TRANSFORM AFRICA”

1. REPORT: GROWING USE OF ICT IN AGRICULTURE HELPING
TO "TRANSFORM AFRICA”
Press Release. June 19, 2014. An influential report on education, training and development
in Africa shows that the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is
beginning to have a significant impact on agriculture and may even be helping to make a
reality of the African Union’s 2063 Vision of a “transformed continent”.
The report’s editor, Dr Harold Elletson, said:
“African agriculture is changing. It is steadily becoming more efficient. Much of the change
is happening at the level of the smallholder farmer and it is being driven by the increased
use of ICTs, which are helping to boost yields, increase choice and improve living standards.
“Our survey shows that people working in the agriculture and food sector realise how useful
ICTs can be. They are bringing new solutions to a whole range of farming problems – for
example, promoting more efficient irrigation methods or better livestock management and
even encouraging the development of self-sustaining funding solutions. ICTs are making a
massive contribution to growth in African agriculture and, as this sector still employs nearly
70 per cent of the workforce, it is very significant in terms of making a reality of the African
Union’s vision of a transformed continent.”
The eLearning Africa Report 2014, which interviewed people working in the agriculture and
food industries throughout Africa, found a higher level of optimism about the future than in
almost any other sector. It also established that the most common uses of ICTs in agriculture
were for the acquisition of knowledge about better farming practices and markets. Survey
respondents said that ICTs could most benefit farmers through “greater efficiency” (49 per
cent ), “better sales” (27 per cent), bigger yields (12 per cent) and “better land
management” (10 per cent).
A typical example of a successful ICT-related project in the agriculture sector is the mFarmer
Initiative Fund, which started as a partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
and now provides farmers in 11 sub-Saharan countries with information and advisory
services via their mobile phones.

2. The eLearning Africa Report 2014’s findings chime with the conclusions of a recent World
Bank report on ‘ICTs for Agriculture in Africa’, which said that “the strategic application of
ICT to the agricultural industry, the largest agricultural sector in most African countries,
offers the best opportunity for economic growth and poverty alleviation on the African
continent.”
Press Contact:
ICWE GmbH
Leibnizstrasse 32
10625 Berlin
Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)30 310 18 18-43
andrea.ricciarelli@icwe.net
The eLearning Africa Report 2014 can be downloaded for free at the link below:
www.elearning-africa.com/report2014
Infographic from the eLearning Africa Report 2014: