Agriculture and food is Africa’s most important economic sector. At the same time this sector is facing huge challenges such as the rising food import bill, climate change, global trade issues and limited resources in several African regions. While considerable progress has been made to increase agricultural productivity, reduce hunger, malnutrition and poverty, create new employment opportunities for young people and improve livelihood of rural communities, digital means and innovation entail the potential for leapfrogging agricultural markets to the 21st century. New digital technologies and services are already having a considerable impact on how food is being produced, processed, marketed, traded and consumed across the continent.

SmartAgriHubs4Africa will build-up a pan-African network of Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) fostering a broad digital transformation in the African agrifood sector. It will build on the European ecosystem SmartAgriHubs developing a mutually beneficial cooperation between African and European DIHs. This ecosystem of ecosystems combines the various expertise that is needed to unleash the potential of digital solutions and realize a digital transformation of the agricultural sector in Africa and Europes Digital Innovation Hubs.

Being a huge continent with a highly diversified agricultural socio-economy, organization and biogeography, as those reflected in the unique local, regional, and national product presumption patterns, makes quite challenging the definition of a common ecosystem for African agriculture able to advance its current dynamics and drive its digital transformation. SAH4Africa has selected African DIHs on a regional clustering and innovation uptake approach based on all major factors influencing agricultural development (e.g. demography, structure of African economies, balance between region/local/global markets, sustainability of natural resources). 

Please contact projectcoordinator Sabine Desczka (Wageningen Economic Research) via sabine.desczka@wur.nl or by phone + 31 6 2488 2743 for more information about the project.