During the 5e United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5), Microsoft, through its Africa Transformation Office, and OCP Africa have announced a partnership that will positively impact smallholder farmers and other stakeholders through Africa by 2025.
OCP Africa partners with Microsoft to strengthen and develop its digital agriculture platform. This platform improves the quality of farmers’ production and enables them to better manage their businesses. The partnership between the two companies will make it possible to quickly extend the agricultural platforms to new and existing geographical areas, thus improving the services offered and developing other new ones.
In this time of increasing food insecurity, there is a need to strengthen the resilience and livelihoods of smallholder farmers to increase agricultural productivity, including by reducing losses in the food production chain. With the increasing impacts of extreme weather events, which have become more and more frequent, adaptation and resilience are of crucial importance for the transformation of the food system.
Working with African AgriTech startups, agribusinesses and other partners to increase access to agricultural technology, skills and knowledge is crucial to optimizing the industry and generating new revenue streams that will ensure the global food security. Microsoft aims to support digital transformation in agriculture to drive economic growth. The adoption and integration of technologies such as cloud, artificial intelligence, agricultural data platforms, and Azure application modernization in the agricultural space will drive transformation in the form of precision agriculture.
The partnership will enable smallholder farmers to access skills and information through agri-digital services leveraging OCP Africa’s programs such as the agri hub concept to support millions of farmers. OCP Africa will also work with Microsoft to explore the use of big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence to build their data and artificial intelligence platform to improve operational efficiency and better serve the stakeholders of the ecosystem.
“We believe that precision agriculture, brought about by the adoption of advanced technologies in the agricultural sector, will revolutionize food production and help eliminate hunger and poverty in Africa. Technology is the key enabler to enable and increase access to finance, equipment and sustainability for rural farmers, empowering local farmers in Africa. Our partnership with OCP Africa will help directly impact smallholder farmers and improve production,” said Wael Elkabbany, Managing Director of Microsoft Africa Regional Cluster.
“African agriculture is at a transformative moment in its history – and a time of incredible opportunity and promise for farmers and industry. The digitization of agricultural practices in Africa allows smallholder farmers to optimize their decision-making, which helps to optimize production. The partnership between OCP Africa and Microsoft will enable us to scale the services provided, grow our digital platform, expand our reach and have an even greater impact on food security across the continent,” said Dr. Mohamed Anouar Jamali, CEO of OCP Africa.
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