A man collecting cotton in Ivory Coast. Naashon Zalk / Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Paris Agricultural Show continues through Sunday in the French capital. For more than 20 years, Côte d’Ivoire has been present at this major international meeting. The agricultural sector is crucial to the Eburnean economy. It accounts for 22% of the gross domestic product, more than half of the country’s export earnings and employs two thirds of the population. In its National Agricultural Investment Program, Côte d’Ivoire has prioritized improving productivity and relying on information technology to achieve this.
Adrienne N’Guessan is the president of an agricultural cooperative in the region of Daloa, in west-central Côte d’Ivoire. It produces coffee, cocoa, cassava, bananas and even attiéké. Like the other women, Adrienne works by hand, using very rudimentary techniques. To improve its productivity, his cooperative is monitored by ANADER, the National Rural Development Support Agency.
“Whenever we are given advice, we follow it,” admits the farmer. But we still need more support to do better. We need training to learn good practices. This is what ANADER does, but officers don’t always have time to look after everyone. We producers, even in the field, we need information. We always need it. “
E-extension
And it is precisely to reach as many producers as possible, even in the most remote places, that ANADER implemented the E-extension system last year. It is a call center, linked to a laboratory, which farmers can reach at any time to ask technical questions.
“The operators speak 7 different languages,” enthuses Dr Sidiki Cissé, Director General of ANADER. Farmers can therefore ask their questions in their dialect. Then, in the call center, technicians can give them an answer immediately. The center also has a database with information on various issues, to which operators can refer to respond as quickly as possible. “
The issues that concern farmers the most are those relating to productivity: “land, seeds, inputs… continues the general manager. There are diseases too. Sometimes they don’t know an insect, so they take a picture of it and send it to us. Some people dig up the roots of a plant to send us a photo too. And when the problem is more complex, we send an agent on site to take stock of the situation. “
Sustainable monitoring
A system appreciated by farmers. Lydie Rachel Kambou is the president of the society of shea producers in Bounkani, in the north-eastern part of the Ivory Coast. Organized in a cooperative since 2015, thanks to ANADER, the 2,000 producers still need regular monitoring.
“99% of women in the shea sector are illiterate so we need capacity building with literacy among other things. We are now legally constituted, but we do not yet have all the contours of the cooperative organization so we have to give ourselves the methodology, train ourselves so that we are seasoned in the field, and then help us with financial management. “
Every day, ANADER’s E-extension center receives more than 200 calls from farmers across the country.
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