Speaking at this year’s AGRIC showcase in Accra, Mr Davis said Africa still has about 600 million hectares of potentially suitable land which hasn`t been put to use yet”, adding that this undeveloped land if appropriately utilized with the use of technological applications by farmers in the sub region could go a long way to solve some of the world`s challenges.
He also said the agricultural sector which was the main driver of the economy could exploit the full potential of information (ICT) by Encouraging and putting in to full use by farmers to improve their value chains thereby reducing the risk of supply to its minimal level.
Technological avenues such as the SMS could be used to alert farmers on bad weather conditions and link them to ready markets, he said.
Speaking on mapping input dealers and linking farmers to markets, a representative of Mfarms, Mr Isaac Kwodwo Asare said it had integrated an ICT platform to help stakeholders in the agricultural chain to communicate efficiently.
He added that some of the modules it had invented was the data collection module, in which mobile phones were used to register farmers and the data mapping of agro dealers, sales, points and price data.
Mr Kwodwo Asare said through this module the outfit had been able to register about 3,000 agro-input dealers with the use of its GPS and camera enabled phones.
An Agricultural Extension Advisor at the Africa Cashew Initiative (ACI), Mr. Stefan Kachelriess-Matthess said his out-fit applied the concept of ICT supported cooperatives to incubate informal small and micro enterprises to bridge the gap in an established economy.
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Quelle/Source: Government of Ghana, 23.05.2012
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