Public-Private Partnership Sows the Seeds of Digital Agriculture

Sep 2 , 2023


Nearly one million smallholder farmers across 150 woredas in six regional states foresee digital profiling and capacity-building services as the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI) and Lersha, a digital agricultural platform signed a three-year agreement last week. Registration, agro-climate advisory and fertiliser recommendations will be given to farmers while enhancement of value chains in several grains including wheat and barley will be the main purpose of the agreement aside from augmenting ATI's farmer hotline service. ATI was established 13 years ago to transform the agricultural sector by working with the private sector and NGOs with funding from USAID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Mandefro Nigussie (PhD), head of the Institute disclosed the willingness to engage with the private sector to improve service delivery and expand services while the founder of Lersha, Abraham Endrias indicated that there is a low adoption rate of technology in the country albeit expecting improvement after the agreement. Lersha joined the sector three years ago to provide aggregated farming information for both financial institutions and farmers by facilitating easy-to-handle technology. It has provided its services to over 100,000 farmers through 1,007 agents.


Radar

Exchange Ponders Adding Salt to its Floor

The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) is considering adding salt to its list as the 24th tradable commodity. Executives are currently conducting feasibility studies and preparing sales contracts. Last week, Ali Muhammed, deputy administrator of the Afar Regional State, and Ali Behani, Head of the Regional Mining Bureau, visited the ECX headquarters in the Mexico area. They said regional salt miners and processors are not adequately compensated for their production, with hopes that the EC...


Radar

Public Service Sector Receives Data Privacy Training

Staff members from the National Bank of Ethiopia, the Ministry of Trade & Regional Integration and the Ministry of Revenues received a three-day training on data privacy and protection over the past week. The training aimed to equip participants with the skills of proper data breach notification procedures, minimising risk of exposure, and secure data transfer practices to safeguard personal data during transmission. It was given by the Business Environment and Investment Climate (BEI...


Radar

Unleashing Millions for Micro-Entrepreneurs with Digital Loans

A 100 million-dollar program to scale up six financial institutions to facilitate digital non-collateral loans to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) was launched last week. Drawing experience from the first digital non-collateral lending platform dubbed Michu powered by Cooperative Bank of Oromia (COOP), the program coupled with Amhara, Bunna, Enat, Wegagen and ZamZam banks. Last year, Coop dispersed 946 million Br loans to farmers through cooperative unions and MSMEs, reaching m...


Back
WhatsApp
Telegram
Email