Connected phones can save
lives and secure food

Connected phones can save lives and secure food. Prasanna Nana provides her thoughts on how telecommunication companies are aiding the Agriculture and Healthcare sector in Africa.

In Africa, the internet of things (IoT) plays an increasingly important role in sectors like agriculture and healthcare.

Traditionally the provider of voice, data connectivity and mobile payments solutions, the telecommunication sector is now using technology to build an entire ecosystem around the individual consumer. Ultra-modern technologies and applications that leverage our hyper-connected lives are being piloted as commerce, the full range of financial services with social media and entertainment all conducted and consumed on one platform.

In the developed world, IoT enables Smart cities, homes, manufacturing and a range of other connected industries and services. In developing Africa, it’s enhancing livelihood security and access to basic healthcare services.

Agriculture in Africa is being affected by climate change and water shortages, yet there is a growing population in need of sustainable food security and greater financial inclusion.

According to GSMA, mobile subscriber penetration in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2020 was 46% and is expected to reach 50% by 2025. More importantly, smartphone adoption was at 48% in 2020 and is expected to reach 64% by 2025. It’s not uncommon in Africa to have access to a mobile phone but not to water or electricity.

These high levels of connectivity and cell phone penetration means that farmers can benefit from real-time data. This can materially enhance crop yields, soil quality analysis, resource management, tracking of livestock, farm security management, sustainable pest control and reduction of post-harvest wastage.

To leverage the power of the internet of things, MTN, present in 19 African countries, has partnered with Aotoso Technology in a proof-of-concept process to provide connected collars for cattle in the Sudanese cattle market. Using sim cards on the collar and their cell phones, farmers can get vital information about the cattle, which they can use to inform feeding and breeding strategies as well as prevention of cattle theft.

Orange, present in 16 countries in Africa, has co-developed Wazihub. Wazihub is an IoT innovation project that helps mainly informal sector farmers with monitoring their livestock and crops for better disease detection and irrigation strategies.

Vodacom, present in 7 countries in Africa, has MyFarmWeb which collects data from multiple IoT sensors across the farm, the data is then collated centrally on an App and can be used to make crucial decisions. There are 77 Farms in the eastern Free State province of South Africa that use MyFarmWeb and its precision farming technology to gather data in farming corn, soybeans and sugar beans.