Connecting smallholder farmers in Africa to the insights and services they need to succeed.

必须对非洲的农业进行投资，以确保下一代的粮食安全。非洲将占未来全球人口增长的96%，在非洲市场，70-80%用于国内和出口的粮食来自10公顷以下的小农场。然而，非洲小农场的平均产量是同一地区同等商业规模农场产量的25%。这表明，小农农业蕴含着最潜在的增长潜力，而且肯定是我们即将到来的粮食危机的答案，但这种潜力尚未得到实现。非洲农场（FA）等组织已经证明，获得服务可以将小农农场的生产力提高65%以上（非洲农场，2020年）。然而，尽管有这种潜力，撒哈拉以南非洲地区的服务接入极其稀少和分散（[GSMA 2020][0]）。由于缺乏获得技术知识和商业支持的机会，导致农业生产力低下，贫困循环不断。Climate Edge （CE）正在通过建立一个SaaS平台来解决这个问题，该平台允许供应商在新兴市场中实现服务的数字化和规模化。提供商无需编写一行代码，就可以增强他们的面对面服务，以便以数字格式有效地交付。在这个项目中，气候边缘将扩大平台的可用性，以便它可以在非洲农场活跃的所有国家提供大量互动的免费服务；肯尼亚、坦桑尼亚、乌干达、刚果民主共和国和埃塞俄比亚。“非洲农场”的服务团队将利用这一平台对精选出的一系列最具影响力的服务进行数字化和规模化，包括农业推广、商业咨询、金融和多样化培训。这些服务将通过新的人工智能短信聊天机器人界面提供，使非洲农场能够扩大其业务规模——覆盖新的农民并推动农场层面的整体改进。通过这种伙伴关系，我们将提供一套新的服务，以加强英国企业和非洲小农农业之间的联系。这将大大有助于我们实现全球粮食安全的目标。[0]: https://www.gsma.com/r/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GSMA-Agritech-Digital-Agriculture-Maps.pdf

Agriculture in Africa _has_ to be invested in to ensure food is secure for the next generations. Africa will account for 96% of future global population growth and in the African market, 70-80% of food grown for domestic use and for export comes from smallholding farms of less than 10 hectares.However, smallholdings in Africa produce on average 25% of what is achieved on equivalent commercial scale farms in the same area. This demonstrates that smallholder agriculture contains the most latent growth potential, and is certainly the answer to our impending food crisis, but that potential is not being realised.Organisations, such as Farm Africa (FA), have demonstrated that access to services can improve smallholder farm productivity by more than 65% (Farm Africa, 2020). However, despite this potential, access to services within sub-Saharan Africa is extremely sparse and fragmented ([GSMA 2020][0]). This lack of access to technical knowledge and business support perpetuates low farm productivity and enduring cycles of poverty.Climate Edge (CE) is solving this problem by building a SaaS platform that allows providers to digitise and scale services within emerging markets. Without having to write a single line of code, providers can augment their in-person services to be delivered effectively in a digital format.In this project Climate Edge will expand the availability of the platform so that it can be used to deliver bundles of interacting, complimentary services across all the countries where Farm Africa are active; Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, DRC and Ethiopia. Farm Africa's service team will use this platform to digitise and scale a select set of their most impactful services, including agricultural extension, business advisory, finance and diversification training. These services will be delivered through a new AI powered SMS chatbot interface and enable Farm Africa to scale their operations - reaching new farmers and driving holistic improvements at the farm level.Through this partnership we will deliver a new suite services to strengthen to the connection between UK business and African smallholder agriculture. This will go a long way to our goal of achieving global food security.[0]: https://www.gsma.com/r/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GSMA-Agritech-Digital-Agriculture-Maps.pdf