Agribusiness: celebrating world food day by charting innovative paths to increase productivity.

 

Celebrating world food day by creating innovative agricultural solutions to end poverty, tackle malnutrition and save our planet.

The exponential population growth to 9.7 billion by 2050 means all hands must be on deck to  rise to the challenge. There must be inclusion of innovative ideas in the way farming, processing and marketing of farm produce is done now to ensure increase productivity.

The use of design thinking comes into play here to chart the path to  productivity using smart agricultural constructs.

Robotics has been incorporated to livestock and general farming to increase productivity and also increase revenue by preventing losses. Africa needs to embrace more of technology-based agriculture to produce more and ensure food security. 

 Agricultural solutions are basically centered around :1) increased productivity which can be achieved by improved seeds, improved animal breeds, new farm practices,education of farmers, adoption of climate smart agriculture .

 2) Leveraging technology to provide data to farmers to improve productivity like Zenvus .The use of robots to enhance productivity such as use of

  3) Curbing food waste this can be by provision of cold hubs for farmers, provision of processing hubs to convert excess products or left overs to a new product with longer shelf-life.

4) Funding for farmers which can be in form of loans or private partnership in form of investment platforms.

5)Access to market: creating linkages for farmers to sell produce at  reasonable prices. The creation of new markets to improve productivity by adoption of circular economy in all agricultural value chains.

  Circular economy not only curbs wastes but closes loops in production cycles.

  6)  Adoption of clean energy to drive innovations in agriculture to reduce cost of production while saving the planet by reducing emissions.

🔑Here’s your Key to success - now pick your door.

🔑Here’s your Key to success - now pick your door. What is success to you? Where are you going? To majority of people success means financial freedom. What is financial freedom to you and how will you achieve this.

 Does success mean freedom from living paycheck-to-paycheck?Does it mean building a life where you call all the shots? Does it mean helping others achieve their dreams (and making a killer paycheck along the way)?

 However you picture success, its is about forging your own path forward. The key to success is having the knowledge to spot opportunities that give you the options to pursue the path that you want… not the one you feel locked into.


 Here are some life changing opportunities that can propel you to success faster than you think, use your key to unlock any of the opportunities. Its your choice, you call the shots, open the door. This is the key.

Drones could speed up HIV tests in remote areas.

Malawi has started a test program that uses drones to improve access to HIV testing for babies. There are various factors such as poor roads and high transport costs, in remote areas that often result in delays in testing. This can prevent access to vital anti retroviral treatment early. Ten percent of Malawians suffer from HIV - one of the highest rates of the deadly condition in the world. Malawi has started testing the use of drones to speed up the time it takes to test infants living in rural areas for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The United Nations' (UN) children's agency UNICEF has partnered with US-based drone company Matternet to develop a program in which Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) pick up sample batches from local health centers and deliver them to specialist laboratories. There are only eight such laboratories across the country, which has a population of more than 16 million. Currently motorbike couriers are used to transport samples across often poorly-maintained roads. UNICEF and Matternet believe deliveries could be made more efficiently by air. The testing program is currently using simulated samples. The first successful test flight recently completed a 10 kilometer route from a community health center to the Kamuzu Central Hospital laboratory in the capital Lilongwe. UAVs have been used in the past for surveillance and assessments of disasters, but this is believed to be the first use of the technology on the continent for the improvement of HIV services. "There are many delays in the continuum of getting HIV positive children on treatment, they need to come in early for testing, ideally before two months, between six and eight weeks, their tests, the dry bloodspots need to get from the health facilities to one of the eight laboratories nationwide," said Judith Sherman, head of Unicef Malawi's HIV and Aids program. The plan is eventually for UAVs to be operated by health workers by virtue of a password and a GPS signal on their mobile phone. A simple swipe of a button will make the vehicle airborne. Each drone costs $7,000 USD but minimal battery charging costs make them cheaper over time than diesel fueled motorbikes. In 2014, about 40,000 children in Malawi were born to HIV positive mothers, according to UNICEF. Every year around 10,000 children die of the virus, a number the agency says could be tackled by early diagnosis and quality medical care. An estimated one million Malawians were living with HIV in 2013 and 48,000 died from HIV-related illnesses in the same year. A young child may be infected by their HIV-positive mother during pregnancy or breast-feeding, but drug treatment can reduce the risk of transmission. UNICEF estimates that if the flights are cost-effective the drones would be able to carry up to 250 tests at once. read more here;http://in.reuters.com/article/us-malawi-hiv-drones

RoBoHoN a robot smartphone.

This small robot has more to it than meets the eye asit doubles as a mobile phone. The 19.5 cm tall RoBoHoN, from Sharp, is set to be launched in May and is one of the more unusual entrants into an increasingly busy smartphone market. It was developed with researchers at the University of Tokyo, the robo-phone will be released in Japan for 198,000 Yen (around £1,280), with the company reportedly looking to bring it to other countries in the future. As a robot, the device is able to walk on two legs and has an inbuilt laser projector with a resolution of 1280 x 720 that can display project photos, videos and maps onto screens or other flat surfaces. RoBoHoN also features a voice recognition system for controlling the robot. Extra features will be introduced as new apps are released. "RoBoHoN can grow to accommodate more natural communication with the user by learning the user's profile and usage situation," Sharp said. The phone element of the robot runs on Android 5.0, has a two-inch LCD screen, 16GB of storage and a 1,700mAh battery. There's also Bluetooth 4.0, an eight megapixel camera and the usual array of accelerometers and gyroscopes. The high price will likely limit the number of units Sharp sells and the company anticipates a monthly sales volume of 5,000 units. culled from wired.co.uk