Heifer unveils digital agriculture champions initiative in Africa

Heifer International, a nonprofit organization on a mission to end global hunger and poverty, has unveiled its Digital Agriculture Champions (DAC) initiative.

The initiative will deliver sustainable, cost-effective training modules for smallholder farmers across Africa, starting with Kenya. Heifer is advancing technology and mechanization to address some of the post-pandemic challenges across different agricultural value chains in Africa; investing in digital extension systems for training as a post-pandemic response strategy that will create efficient, scalable solutions for farmers and help boost the value chains in which they work.

Heifer is also committed to mentoring the youth who often constitute the extension staff, and is focused on empowering them to become digital champions with entrepreneurship skills to ensure quality services for farmers, and sustainable business models beyond the life of Heifer project interventions.

According to Adesuwa Ifedi, Senior Vice President Africa Programs, “Heifer is committed to catalyzing ground-up engagement of the youth in Agriculture. The Digital Agriculture Champions initiative will foster the application of digital technology in agriculture, delivering solutions that address challenges faced by smallholder farmers at scale.”

She added, “The idea for the AYuTe Africa Challenge (AYuTe stands for Agriculture, Youth and Technology) was conceived by Heifer based on four decades of work as a trusted partner of African farmers—and seeing first-hand the stark difference between local farms that have access to new technologies and those that do not.”

In accordance with this tech innovation drive, Heifer is working with Kuza Biashara, a digital social enterprise, as technical partner, to offer a bundled solution that provides personalized digital training and extension services to smallholder farmers in Africa.

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The partnership with Kuza is a product of Heifer International’s AYuTe Africa Challenge -a competition that awards cash grants of up to US$1.5 million annually to the most promising young Agri-technology innovators across Africa who are using technology to re-imagine farming and food production across the continent.

The initiative will be geared towards empowering the front-line extension workers across multiple programs of Heifer in Africa with a structured incubation model that promotes their businesses to scale, as a pathway to becoming Agripreneurs building sustainable businesses.

Kuza’s founder Sriram Bharatam said: “We are a strong believer in the fact that one plus one is 11. When you bring tools to partners together with a common, shared vision and values, you can create magic.”

“The Digital Agriculture Champions will capitalize on the network effect by first running programs that incubate young entrepreneurs, who then each engage approximately 200 households in rural communities, giving them the knowledge, tools, and networks needed to transform how they do business in a sustainable way, especially in agriculture.” he added.

By creating an ecosystem comprising mentors who provide emotional, functional, and technical support to micro-entrepreneurs, the Digital Agriculture Champions initiative aspires to drive a continental movement, providing a collective voice to millions of previously excluded youths.

“We are providing a comprehensive digital platform for the front-line extension workers, who we are referring to as Digital Agriculture Champions; to learn at their own pace, connect with their farmers and grow their agribusiness. We will mentor and handhold them through their journey from incubation to the growth stage via the Kuza OneNetwork platform,” Adesuwa Ifedi said.