Post by Trade Coach on Jan 6, 2018 17:59:21 GMT 1
Serah Odene is the co-founder of African Hervesters, in this interview, she shares her thoughts on the crucial role of ICTs in achieving development of agricultural sector in Nigeria and in Africa.
What does African Harvesters do?
Africa Harvesters is an agribusiness hub for agric stakeholders across the value chain from farm to table. We are primarily an ICT firm. We provide relevant information to agribusinesses for all agric stakeholders, specifically in the aspect of opportunities. We also work with different international orgainsations such as USAID, GAIN and amongst others.
Why information Communications Technology?
ICT is important for agribusiness from processes to mechanization, to GPS, Information Technology, to selling the business online through digital marketing, to also having an online platform for themselves because we have done a research and we have discovered that 82 percent of agribusinesses don’t even have the financial capacity to project their business online. Most of them don’t have websites. Most smallholder farmers only depend on feature phones which can only make calls and send SMS. Some can’t even use SMS. Those are actually information technologies affecting agribusinesses in Africa and that is what we are actually tackling.
How long have you been in operation?
We are a start-up and we currently fund the business ourselves. We don’t have any external funding yet because we are taking our time. It is actually an interesting journey. We have been positioning ourselves in relevant seminars and workshops organized by development organizations and we have been working with different agric stakeholders. We are working with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and with different sectors of the agric value chain. We are working with the Nigerian Agri Business Group through Alhaji Sani Dangote and Mr. Emmanuel Ijewere and other relevant stakeholders. We are also looking at other African markets to spread our reach.
In market terms, how big is ICT in agriculture?
It is a very big market. It is about positioning and staying focused because agriculture is a unique market in Africa. There is a lot of talking but no working. Nigerian youths don’t want to get dirty but they want to practice agriculture. There are lots of funny things that you hear out there, ‘‘different people with different opinions about agriculture’’.
People have views that can contribute to the overall development of the agric sector. Those are the kind of platforms we like to identify with, platforms that really talk about agriculture because Nigerian youths don’t have the opportunity of attending such an event. So how do we help them talk about what the problem is and how do we also get the solution and also inform them.
What does African Harvesters do?
Africa Harvesters is an agribusiness hub for agric stakeholders across the value chain from farm to table. We are primarily an ICT firm. We provide relevant information to agribusinesses for all agric stakeholders, specifically in the aspect of opportunities. We also work with different international orgainsations such as USAID, GAIN and amongst others.
Why information Communications Technology?
ICT is important for agribusiness from processes to mechanization, to GPS, Information Technology, to selling the business online through digital marketing, to also having an online platform for themselves because we have done a research and we have discovered that 82 percent of agribusinesses don’t even have the financial capacity to project their business online. Most of them don’t have websites. Most smallholder farmers only depend on feature phones which can only make calls and send SMS. Some can’t even use SMS. Those are actually information technologies affecting agribusinesses in Africa and that is what we are actually tackling.
How long have you been in operation?
We are a start-up and we currently fund the business ourselves. We don’t have any external funding yet because we are taking our time. It is actually an interesting journey. We have been positioning ourselves in relevant seminars and workshops organized by development organizations and we have been working with different agric stakeholders. We are working with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and with different sectors of the agric value chain. We are working with the Nigerian Agri Business Group through Alhaji Sani Dangote and Mr. Emmanuel Ijewere and other relevant stakeholders. We are also looking at other African markets to spread our reach.
In market terms, how big is ICT in agriculture?
It is a very big market. It is about positioning and staying focused because agriculture is a unique market in Africa. There is a lot of talking but no working. Nigerian youths don’t want to get dirty but they want to practice agriculture. There are lots of funny things that you hear out there, ‘‘different people with different opinions about agriculture’’.
People have views that can contribute to the overall development of the agric sector. Those are the kind of platforms we like to identify with, platforms that really talk about agriculture because Nigerian youths don’t have the opportunity of attending such an event. So how do we help them talk about what the problem is and how do we also get the solution and also inform them.