On April 11, 2025, Addis Ababa — The World Bank’s Global Lead for Data-Driven Digital Agriculture and Innovation praised Ethiopia’s advancements in agriculture, highlighting how digital data is being used to boost productivity.
In an exclusive interview with ENA, Parmesh Shah, who serves as the World Bank’s Global Lead for Data-Driven Digital Agriculture and Innovation, highlighted that Ethiopia has achieved considerable advancement in utilizing agricultural digital data to boost productivity.
According to Shah, substantial improvements in African agricultural productivity, products, and services can be achieved through investments in data regarding farmers, farms, soils, climate, and weather, coupled with the development of a data platform.
He additionally highlighted the crucial necessity for substantial funding in data systems and data platforms.
Shah also highlighted that “Ethiopia has created a five-year plan for digital agriculture and is offering certain advisory services to farmers using data-driven approaches. Additionally, they have converted all of their soil information into digital format, making a digitized soil map accessible.”
He also acknowledged Ethiopia’s focus on empowering youth, the private sector, and startups in investing in data and climate services.
As part of the Food Security Resilience Program funded by the World Bank, which began implementation in 2022, the agricultural sector has seen promising initial outcomes.
Shah noted that Ethiopia has provided initial insights into climate-resilient practices by introducing certain crop varieties using local farmer seeds, leading to their adoption among growers.
He mentioned that many farmers are getting guidance from climate and weather information, which they use to implement various strategies, resulting in an initial boost of productivity by around 20%.
Even though these are tentative conclusions, Shah remains hopeful about what lies ahead.
He additionally highlighted the possibility of improved market reach. “Given that Ethiopia is rapidly becoming a significant hub for agribusiness, with ambitions to further develop this sector, it will provide farmers greater opportunities to sell their goods in African markets and beyond.”
Should all proposed solutions and investments be implemented, we anticipate observing a productivity boost of 30 to 40 percent.”
He further highlighted the significant impact of investing in agricultural data within other African nations. “Seven countries have committed resources to developing digital farmer registries and have enrolled all their farmers into these online systems,” Shah noted additionally.
He highlighted that these nations are progressing in offering meteorological services, high-quality information, and advice for farmers, along with digitalizing agricultural business records.
As per his statement, Ethiopia and Kenya are leading the way among East African nations.
He highlighted Kenya’s advancements, pointing out the enrollment of 6.5 million farmers and the distribution of weather information to 4 million individuals along with climate-smart advice reaching 3 million people.
Other countries across Africa are also advancing in this field; for instance, Malawi has digitized all of its information, whereas Ghana has created digital advisory business platforms. This was stated by Shah.
Provided by GAPTEKZONE. (
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