Tag Archive for: Agricultural Industry

Andrew Stegmann

South Africa’s Draft National Youth Policy: Major Changes Planned for Schools and Universities

The South African government has published its Draft National Youth policy for 2020 – 2030, outlining its plans to get more young South Africans into education and employment opportunities over the next 10 years.

The document states that youth unemployment has reached ‘crisis proportions’ in South Africa and remains one of the major challenges facing the country today.

“South Africa’s unemployment rate is high for both youth and adults; though, the unemployment rate among the youth currently stands at an alarming 56.4% and is considered to be one of the highest globally,” it said.

“Against this background, it is clear that the major contributor to poverty, inequality, and unemployment amongst the youth in South Africa is the low level of educational attainment and skills.

“The latest national data from Stats SA (2018) shows that of the 10.3 million persons aged 15-24 years, 32.4% (approximately 3.3 million) were not in employment, education or training, with females constituting 35.3% and males 29.6%.”

Other statistics that point to a failure in the education system include:

  • About 52% of 24-year-olds in the country have completed Grade 12, compared to 70% in most developing countries;
  • A million young people exit the schooling system annually, of whom 65% leave without achieving a Grade 12 certificate;
  • Half of those who exit the schooling system do so after Grade 11, either because they do not enroll in Grade 12 or they fail Grade 11.

Plans to fix the problem

To address the issues in South Africa’s education sector, the policy document outlines a number of proposals which should be introduced by 2030.

Below, BusinessTech outlined the proposals for each sector.

Schools 

  • The Department of Basic Education, in partnership with private providers, should support learners who need a ‘second chance’ to pass matric. The Department of Higher Education, Science and Technology should also provide young people who have left school with the opportunity to complete their education to enable them to compete in the open labor market;
  • All schools should be encouraged to have an anti-racism policy that supports small freedoms such as allowing African children to wear natural Afros to schools;
  • All South African learners must learn an indigenous language. Sign language should also be progressively introduced in all schools;
  • Basic computer literacy should be included in the school curriculum;
  • Practical subjects such as entrepreneurship, technical skills and handwork (art) need to be introduced to the curriculum help those who are not inclined to proceed to higher education;
  • Schools in rural areas should be able to use local farming land for practical or experiential learning in agriculture. Local farmers can mentor learners;
  • Existing incentives to attract young people to the teaching profession should continue until at least 2020. This means that teacher salaries should be competitive.

Post-school

  • The number of TVET colleges should be expanded to increase the participation rate to 25% and the graduation rate 75% by 2030;
  • Government should introduce a new community college framework designed for youth who did not complete their schooling or who never attended school and thus do not qualify to study at TVET colleges or universities. This will offer tailor-made qualifications to meet the needs of the youth;
  • The government should progressively introduce free education for poor learners until undergraduate level and increase the funding options available to support students at the post-secondary level who are academically successful but unable to complete their study programs due to financial hardships;
  • All higher education institutions (colleges, universities) must introduce foundation programs for learners in transition from the basic to higher education learning environment. These foundation courses should include soft skills development to help students cope with university demands;
  • All government departments including municipalities should have internship programs, which should be monitored in terms of numbers and quality;
  • Every qualification at university should be coupled with an experiential component to ensure graduates have experience when they qualify;
  • The BRICS virtual university must be established to facilitate the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for educational purposes and promote access to education, particularly for females;
  • Based on feasibility studies, agricultural colleges and schools of excellence must be established in each province and agriculture faculties must be introduced and/or strengthened in universities and TVET colleges.

To view the full policy, click here.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email info@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].

Andrew Stegmann
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Zambian and Ugandan Farmers Grow Yields Three Fold With Drought-Tolerant Maize

Zambia’s vice-president has recently called to reduce maize dominance and increase crop and diet diversification in his country. The reality is that maize is and will remain a very important food crop for many eastern and southern African countries.

Diet preferences and population growth mean that it is imperative to find solutions to increase maize production in these countries, but experts forecast 10 to 30% reduction in maize yields by 2030 in a business-as-usual scenario, with projected temperature increases of up to 2.7 degrees by 2050 and important drought risks.

Knowing the importance of maize for the food security of countries like Zambia, it is crucial to help maize farmers get better and more stable yields under erratic and challenging climate conditions.

To address this, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and its partners have been developing hundreds of new maize varieties with good drought tolerance across sub-Saharan Africa. Stakeholders in the public research and African seed sectors have collaborated through the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project and the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) initiative to develop drought-tolerant seed that also incorporates other qualities, such as nutritional value and disease resistance.

A groundbreaking impact study six years ago demonstrated that drought-tolerant maize significantly reduced poverty and food insecurity, particularly in drought years. A new study from CIMMYT and the Center for Development Research (ZEF) in the main maize growing areas of Zambia confirms that adopting drought-tolerant maize can increase yields by 38% and reduce the risks of crop failure by 36%.

Over three quarters of the rain-fed farmers in the study experienced drought during the survey. These farming families of 6 or 7 people were cultivating 4 hectares of farmland on average, half planted with maize.

Another study on drought-tolerant maize adoption in Uganda estimated also good yield increases and lower crop failure risks by 26 to 35%. Drought-tolerant maize has a transformational effect. With maize farming becoming less risky, farmers are willing to invest more in fertilizer and other inputs and plant more maize.

However, taking the decision of adopting new farm technologies in a climate risky environment could be a daunting task. Farmers may potentially gain a lot but, at the same time, they must consider downside risks. As Gertrude Banda, a lead farmer in eastern Zambia, put it, hybrid seeds have a cost and when you do not know whether rains will be enough “this is a gamble.” In addition to climate uncertainty, farmers worry about many other woes, like putting money aside for urgent healthcare, school fees, or cooking nutritious meals for the family.

An additional hurdle to adoption is that farmers may not know all the options available to cope with climate risks. While 77% of Zambia households interviewed said they experienced drought in 2015, only 44% knew about drought-tolerant maize. This unequal access to knowledge and better seeds, observed also in Uganda, slows adoption of drought-tolerant maize. There, 14% of farmers have adopted drought-tolerant maize varieties. If all farmers were aware of this technology, 8% more farmers would have adopted it.

Because farmers are used to paying for cheap open-pollinated varieties, they are only willing to pay half of the hybrid market price, even though new hybrids are performing very well. Awareness campaigns on the benefits of drought-tolerant maize could boost adoption among farmers. According to the same study, the potential for scaling drought-tolerant maize could raise up to 47% if drought-tolerant varieties were made available at affordable prices at all agro-dealers. Several approaches could be tested to increase access, such as input credit or subsidy schemes.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email info@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], Jen Theodore [2].

Andrew Stegmann

Smart Tech Becomes the New Tool for African Farmers

Farmers and crop buyers have started to harness smart gadgets and crunch numbers to improve productivity and reduce costs.

How do you manage the trick of feeding school children better and at a lower cost? How do you count the number of mangoes on your farm so that you get a fair price? And what is a clever-but-cheap way for a farmer to cut down his irrigation bill?

Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa may have the image of relentless toil and low productivity, but experts say new tech is changing the picture.

Farmers, crop buyers and other sector professionals have started to harness smart gadgets and crunch numbers to improve productivity, reduce costs and smooth out wrinkles in the markets, they say.

“There’s a digital revolution unfolding in Africa,” says Pascal Bonnet, a deputy director of Cirad, the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development.

“Around the continent, there are excellent researchers in information technology, digital agriculture is a real opportunity for qualified young Africans.”

The idea of directly linking farmers to consumers, cutting out wholesalers and stores is a familiar story in Europe and North America.

Awa Thiam, a 28-year-old telecoms engineer, is following suit in her native Senegal. The company she founded, Lifantou, connects school canteens with farming co-operatives with the help of big data.

“There’s a huge need for this,” Thiam said, showcasing her work at an agri-tech conference in Dakar in April.

“Today, between 25% and 50% of the cost of school meals goes to intermediaries, but schools have limited budgets. If you shorten the supply chain, canteens can bring down the cost of meals and offer the children more varied menus.”

Her one-stop platform draws on a databank of crop production and schools to match potential demand with supply.

It group-purchases to lower the cost for schools and in a final flourish organises the transport of the goods, with operations monitored in real time.

Margin for mistakes

A project called Pix Fruit, meanwhile, aims to help farmers who have until now estimated their mango crop by counting the fruit on a bunch of trees and then extrapolating for the whole plantation.

This rough-and-ready method has considerable room for error.

Emile Faye, a French researcher in digital agro-ecology who works for Pix Fruit, says the margin for mistakes could be as much as a factor of 10.

A purchaser, for instance, could pay the price for two tons of mangoes while taking delivery of 20 tons from the farmer, although errors may go either way.

Pix Fruit’s alternative uses advanced modelling software to produce a more precise count of the crop.

Using a smartphone, the farmer takes photos of a selection of trees in his fields.

Agritech concept smartphone app accessing dairy cows data and statistics in a grassy field

Fruit-recognition technology then calculates the likely overall harvest, drawing on a databank compiled with the help of drones that also includes information on climate, soil and administrative constraints. That way, farmers learn the true worth of their crop, while wholesalers and price negotiators have a better take on the risk of glut or undersupply.

The system, jointly developed by Cirad and the Senegalese Institute for Agricultural Research, could be extended to coffee, lychees and citrus fruits.

That the smartphone should play such a central role is no surprise. The advent of mobile helped Africa to leapfrog the cost of installing landlines, spurring innovative use, from ride-sharing to money transfer.

The pioneering work is now spreading into the rural world.

The continent’s third-most downloaded app, according to Africa.com, is Esoko, which collects and shares crop prices, provides weather information and farming tips, and arranges payment via a mobile money system.

It operates in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, Madagascar, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

The Widim Pump, made by a Dakar firm called Nano Air, is a box controlled by SMS messages that a farmer sends to manage his irrigation system.

The savings are substantial, even for poor peasant families, says Oumar Basse, a 27-year-old engineer and the company’s co-founder.

“There’s no more need for the farmer to walk several kilometres every day or use up fuel or hire someone to monitor the pumps. He can switch on the water or turn off the supply using his mobile phone.”

With 12 employees after two years in operation, Nanoair has sold 250 Widim systems and received orders from Morocco and Zambia.

Basse has also founded another firm helping with handling deliveries and after-sales services.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email marketing@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].