An Outlook on Harnessing Technological Innovative Competence in Sustainably Transforming African Agriculture

Agricultural value chains worldwide provide essential support to livelihoods, ecosystem services, and the growing bioeconomy. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic slowed down or reversed decades of agricultural growth and exposed the vulnerabilities of farmers and the food insecure in Af...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Global challenges 2023-09, Vol.7 (9), p.2300033-n/a
Main Authors: Asem-Hiablie, Senorpe, Uyeh, Daniel Dooyum, Adelaja, Adesoji, Gebremedhin, Kifle, Srivastava, Ajit, Ileleji, Klein, Gitau, Margaret, Ha, Yushin, Park, Tusan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptability
agricultural productivity and food security
Agriculture
Coastal zone
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
digital technologies
Disaster management
Ecosystem services
Emergency preparedness
Food supply
Genetic transformation
Harvesting
Indigenous knowledge
Nutrition
pandemic
Pandemics
resilience
Sustainable agriculture
system shocks
Value engineering
Vertical farming
Viral diseases
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Summary:Agricultural value chains worldwide provide essential support to livelihoods, ecosystem services, and the growing bioeconomy. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic slowed down or reversed decades of agricultural growth and exposed the vulnerabilities of farmers and the food insecure in Africa, thus reiterating the need to build resilience, agility, and adaptability for a sustainable agriculture. Existing social, political, environmental, and economic challenges demonstrate that a path to faster sustainable growth is increased productivity through improved input quality, of which technical inputs are a part. This work presents a perspective calling for African innovative competence in technological and methodological applications and solutions as part of the most critical area of a holistic organization for social progress. It finds that while performances of previous agricultural transformation efforts offer insights for future directions, novel pathways fitting to the diversity of situations and contexts on the continent are needed. These may include vertical agriculture in land-constrained regions to grow high-value products, ocean or sea farming in coastal regions, development of multiple-harvesting crops, and self-replicating plants. Developing standards that integrate current scientific methodologies and technologies with indigenous knowledge for agricultural growth and disaster management will bring the complementary benefits of both worlds into optimal development.
ISSN:2056-6646
2056-6646
DOI:10.1002/gch2.202300033