The Future of Farming Is Now: Africa Set to “Leapfrog” Farming Practices of Old
By Matt Rushing “Technology leapfrogging” refers to the adoption of advanced or state-of-the-art technology in an application area where immediate prior technology has not been adopted. Discussions of Information and communication technologies (ICT) leapfrogging have largely focused on developing countries,...
The Future of Farming Is Now: Africa Set to “Leapfrog” Farming Practices of Old
By Matt Rushing “Technology leapfrogging” refers to the adoption of advanced or state-of-the-art technology in an application area where immediate prior technology has not been adopted. Discussions of Information and communication technologies (ICT) leapfrogging have largely focused on developing countries,...By Matt Rushing
“Technology leapfrogging” refers to the adoption of advanced or state-of-the-art technology in an application area where immediate prior technology has not been adopted. Discussions of Information and communication technologies (ICT) leapfrogging have largely focused on developing countries, which generally lag behind on technology adoption, and unlike the developed countries, are not inhibited by entrenched intermediate technology. New and advanced technology provides developing countries with the opportunity to accelerate economic development…In addition, the advancement of ICTs has reduced costs and imposed lesser demands on the skill of the users due to user-friendly features…1
Last month, AGCO held its sixth annual Africa Summit in Berlin, Germany, where I was honored to give a short presentation about how precision farming can help solve many of the challenges facing today’s growers.
What is especially exciting for Africa is that the new generation of growers has the opportunity to “leapfrog” farming practices of old and start with the best technology AGCO can offer. For example, they can skip manual planting and fertilizing practices and go straight to mechanical and automated rate and section control, in the same way many developing countries never fully developed a traditional telecommunications infrastructure, but skipped straight to mobile phones.
Although there are challenges such as climate volatility and agronomic know-how, the future is bright and opportunities are boundless to take advantage of the last several decades of agricultural technology leaps and apply them in a fresh environment. AGCO’s Fuse precision farming technologies can help growers reduce waste and maximize yields from the smallest subsistence farmers to the largest corporate farming operations.
To learn more about the Summit and view the event gallery, visit http://agco-africa-summit.com/.
To learn more about Fuse, visit http://www.agcotechnologies.com/about-fuse/.
Matt Rushing is the Vice President of AGCO’s Global Fuse Product Line. Learn more about AGCO’s precision farming technology solutions by visiting www.AGCOcorp.com/Fuse.
