Re-conceptualised agriculture has potential to employ youth’

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has stated that the agriculture sector has the potential to gainfully employ youth if it is re-conceptualised by harnessing the power of digital and technological innovations.
The organisation in a statement on its website said it is creating and promoting these innovative solutions to address the everdire challenges facing our future of food and agriculture.
It said though youth are running away from agriculture because of the tedious labour requirement, but that there are already new ways of working in agriculture that harnesses digital and technological innovations, rendering it more efficient and, not as a small byproduct, providing new opportunities and services for young entrepreneurs.
Giving examples of how to harnes s the power of technology, FAO said it has deployed the use of drone as estimates suggested that the food and agriculture sector will be the second largest user of drones in the world in the next five years.
Adding that FAO has developed Fall Armyworm Monitoring and Early Warning System (FAMEWS) App to capture data uploaded by farmers in their fields.
It revealed further that the information added to the app is transferred to a global web-based platform and analysed to give realtime situation reports, calculate infestation levels and suggest measures to reduce impact.
“Along with FAMEWS, FAO and the Pennsylvania State University have developed a complementary, talking app called Nuru that, when held next to a damaged plant, can immediately confirm if Fall Armyworm has caused the damage.
Nuru combines machine learning and artificial intelligence.
It runs inside a standard Android phone and can also work offline.
“Abalobu app which is Xhosa for “fisherfolk”, is a mobile application for smallscale fishers to record what they caught, when, where, using what method and for how much they sold it.
All that information is stored in the app and made available to other smallscale fishers.
“Four new apps are providing farmers with real-time services through information on weather, livestock care, markets and nutrition.
The weather and crop calendar app combines information on weather forecasts and crop schedules, providing early warning of potential risks.
The cure and feed your livestock app helps reduce losses by providing information on animal disease control and animal feeding strategies.
“AgriMarketplace enables farmers to obtain better information about suppliers for raw material purchases, marketplaces to sell their products and market prices.
e-Nutrifood gives rural people recommendations on producing, conserving and eating nutritious foods,” the report revealed.
It states further that youth are just the ones to offer new ideas.
Adding that during the #HackagainstHunger event this week in Kigali, Rwanda, FAO and its partners are engaging young people from different countries in Africa to find innovative solutions that address challenges in food and agriculture.
“These Hackathons aim to develop ideas into tech solutions to produce youth-led and youth-focused employment opportunities while offering mentorship from private and public sector experts.
“Digital technologies are already our present and innovation is imperative for the future.
New ideas from our youth and from organizations, universities and companies all over the world are helping to unlock the potential of food and agriculture for reducing poverty, to bridge the rural divide, to employ and empower youth and to give equal access to information, technology and markets,” the report stated