Market for IoT in agriculture in Africa to reach USD 4.5 B by 2023

Technological advancements and continued innovation has impacted the Africa’s IoT in agriculture market’s operating models and reshape agriculture system. Considering such factors it is anticipated market will be valued at around USD 4.5 billion by 2023.

Definition / Scope
Market Overview
Market Risks
Top Market Opportunities
Market Drivers
Industry Challenges
Technology Trends
Regulatory Trends
Other Key Market Trends
Market Size and Forecast
Market Outlook
Technology Roadmap
Distribution Chain Analysis
Competitive Landscape
Competitive Factors
Key Market Players
Strategic Conclusion
References
Appendix

Definition / Scope

Between now and 2050 the planet’s population is likely to rise to 9.7 billion, from 7.3 billion now. The Food and Agriculture Organization published a report which suggested that by 2050 agricultural production will have to rise by 70% to meet projected demand. Since most land suitable for farming is already farmed, this growth must come from higher yields. .

The Internet of Things (IoT) has brought everything connected through the internet together. This connected network offers new opportunities to enhance operations across manufacturing, energy, agriculture, transportation and other infrastructure sectors of the economy.

Internet of things (IoT) technology is anticipated to play a significant role in increasing the current agricultural productivity to cater to the growing demand for food.

IoT in agriculture industry incorporates IoT-based advanced technological tools, systems, equipment, and solutions to enhance the operational efficiency, maximize yield, and minimize wastage of energy through real-time field data collection, data storage, data analysis, and development of control platform.

Market Overview

The market is anticipated to expand with a CAGR of 14.7% over the forecast period from 2019 and 2023 due to lowered cost of technology as a result of on-going R&D in IoT, and efforts by various governments of the region to increase the quality and quantity of agriculture production.

Alongside the rise in global population and increase in demand for food across the region have fuelled the adoption of new technology to optimize the agriculture production are the reasons for the gain of the estimated market size of approximately US $ 4.5 billion by 2023.

In addition, climate change plays a significant role in impacting the agriculture production. Thus, severe weather condition supports the deployment of IoT-based technology to optimize agriculture production.

Despite these growth factors, major concerns related to the agriculture industry comprises of numerous small players that provide solutions for various stages of the agriculture value chain. As a few of the agricultural processes achieve economic feasibility, the growth of the market is expected to be hampered during the forecast period.

Additionally, the lack of skilled workers and standardization in procedures are restraining growth of the market. Nonetheless, the development of advanced and wide-ranging system solution, increase in smartphone users and internet penetration among farmers boosts their awareness about the latest developments in the agriculture market are expected to offer lucrative opportunities for growth.

IoT in agriculture has the primary objective to address agriculture-based issues and optimize the quantity and quality of agriculture production, by connecting farms through a single platform and making them more intelligent by sharing, storing, and analyzing the information.

Furthermore, industries are adopting advanced analyzing tools to understand growth opportunities in various sectors. In the coming years, companies would deploy IoT software and services to capture new growth opportunity by increasing production and creating new hybrid business models.

The Africa Internet-of-Things (IoT) in agriculture market is segmented by System (Automation and control systems, Sensing and monitoring devices, Livestock monitoring hardware, Fish farming hardware, Smart greenhouse hardware, and Software) and Application (Precision farming, Livestock Monitoring, Smart Greenhouse, and Fish farm monitoring.)

IoT is changing the competitive landscape of agriculture, as companies are investing in advanced technologies. Further, companies such as General Electric Company, IBM Corporation, etc. have been able to establish themselves as leaders.

Some of the major players are currently focusing on providing IoT solutions with advanced and innovative technologies. As part of this strategy, the companies are engaging in various acquisitions, strategic partnerships, and focusing on expanding their business through new service additions and geographical presence.

Market Risks

Although Africa’s IoT in agriculture is growing rapidly, it continues to face a number of obstacles, such as fragmentation, security, high poverty rate, and data management issues .

Fragmentation of Agricultural Market:

Africa’s agricultural sector is not dominated by a few major players but consists of many small players that offer solutions for various phases of the agriculture value chain.
Farmers find it difficult to achieve economies of scale through the deployment of solutions pertaining to only part of the agricultural process. For instance, solutions on reducing costs for transportation or irrigation are in themselves of limited help in maximizing return on investment (ROI).

High Poverty Rate:

IoT uses technology to connect physical objects to the internet. For IoT adoption to grow in Africa, the cost of components that are needed to support capabilities such as sensing, tracking, and control mechanisms need to be relatively inexpensive in the coming years.
Africa remains the poorest continent and is arguably stuck in a poverty trap with over 410 million poor people (using the international poverty line of US$1.9 PPP).
However, it’s forecasted that most technology components such as radio, Wi-Fi and GPS, could see a drop in the cost of 15% to 45% in the next five years .

The Lag in the Adoption of IoT Security:

A major concern that surrounds IoT is the security and privacy of the data; this concern leads to loss of physical systems and data security. Maintaining high levels of security is a significant challenge for the IoT.
The number of IoT connections will increase at a CAGR of 16% from 6 billion in 2015 to 27 billion by 2025. Despite IoT having a significant opportunity to scale and gain mass-market adoption, the lack of network security capabilities could hamper momentum.
As the number of IoT devices and sensors increase, the importance of data and network security increases too .

Lack of Connecting Services for the Agricultural Market:

Connections remain to be a key hurdle as connecting services in agriculture have not yet reached the technical maturity level seen in other verticals, such as retail and automotive.
However, connectivity providers are on a constant pursuit to expand services for the agricultural sector by partnering with other players.
Agricultural IoT devices need to send and receive data over fast, reliable wireless connections, which mean that the availability of mobile broadband in rural areas is a critical factor.

Data Management for Agricultural Decision Making:

Data aggregation and data management is a troubling obstacle for the smart agriculture market. One considerable barrier in the efficient use of data is the lack of industry standards for data management applications in smart agriculture-based solutions.
Currently, Big Data solutions by companies like MySQL and Hadoop, deal with scale, capacity and processing tasks.
In connection with other companies like Several nines, software management is becoming ever easier.

Top Market Opportunities

The development of advanced and wide-ranging system solution for maintenance is expected to offer productive opportunities for the growth of the market. There are several factors that hint to the fact that massive IoT deployment in Africa will amount to success. Most of them refer to the cost of devices and the introduction of new technology that will handle the communication and information processing aspects of IoT. They are:

Cheaper cost of sensors and bandwidth:

Sensor prices have dropped to an average 60 cents from $1.30 in the past 10 years. The cost of bandwidth has also declined steeply, by a factor of nearly 40X over the past 10 years.
The cost of processing has seen a sharp decrease of nearly 60 times since the past 10 years, thereby allowing more devices to smartly handle all the new data they are generating or receiving .

Widespread use of Smartphone:

Farmers are increasingly reliant on smartphones and other intelligent mediums to keep up-to-date about the latest development in the agricultural sector.
Smartphones have become a remote control or interface for most applications ranging from healthcare to automobile.
Also, the number of smartphone users has increased since the past years. According to a report, the Smartphone penetration per capita in the Middle East and Africa will have experienced an increase of 13.6% from 2.6% in the last five years. The affordability of the smartphone has also aided its spread in Africa.

Alternative energy and ultralow-power technologies:

Farmers are growing increasingly dependent on technologies in their daily day-to-day activities. Availability of power to supply most devices that require automation has been a challenge in Africa but new technologies for ultralow-power devices have been a key enabler to IoT.
Some devices today can power themselves as they tap energy from immediate environment.
Example is wearable devices for body monitoring (temperature and heart rate) can power themselves with energy from vibration, pulse, and heat.

Market Drivers

Climate Change:

Climate change will significantly impact agricultural production.
The midwestern U.S. and Eastern Australia will experience a decrease in agricultural production due to extreme heat.
These severe weather conditions will stimulate the deployment of IoT-based solutions in Africa’s agriculture to increase yield and improve efficiency.

Need for Water Conservation:

Agriculture consumes nearly 70% of freshwater. Since water scarcity is becoming an increasingly significant problem across the globe, the efficient utilization of water for agricultural activities requires more attention. Proper technologies can help reduce water consumption by 10%.
Applications such as smart irrigation systems will help to save water in agricultural applications. Leveraging IoT for water conservation will be a major trend in the future of agriculture.

Emphasis on Enhancing Efficiency:

Smart agriculture is enabling farmers to minimize costs and the efforts associated with agricultural activities.
Smart agricultural technologies are helping to optimize various agricultural resources such as seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides along with human labor. Advanced technologies enable reduced energy consumption and fuel usage.
Smart agriculture is enhancing productivity by guiding farmers to expertly invest both time and resources in the appropriate combination to achieve the perfect balance for optimized production.

Introduction of Big Data Analytics:

With the introduction of big data analytics, the millions of data which is turned out daily by the various connected “things” in the IoT network can be processed faster and better.
Rising usage of a cloud-computing platform in order to ensure the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, this is expected to propel the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) market.
Additionally, a growing number of data centers are supporting the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) market.

Industry Challenges

Some of the challenges faced by Africa’s IoT in the agriculture market today are:

Energy:

Connected objects need regular battery recharges or remain AC-powered. The International Energy Agency (IEA) is concerned about excessive consumption and possible electricity production shortages.
An estimated 80% of the electricity consumed by the connected devices is used just to maintain an active Internet connection. Most batteries and power packs are either too heavy, thereby making the entire system bulky or they have a short lifespan and require frequent replacement or charging.
Unfortunately, battery technology is making relatively slow progress, and ‘energy harvesting’, i.e. generating electricity from the environment is not yet powerful enough to meet the energy requirements of Africa’s electronic systems in many application scenarios.
There are already some battery-free wireless sensors that can transmit their readings a distance of a few meters. Solar energy is set to become the biggest trend .

Network Capacity Constraints:

With convergences brought about by connected machines and smart mobile devices, there is an increasing demand for network infrastructure to support these data ‘hungry’ devices with a certain level of expected QoS.
The issue of limited network capacity has prompted many African operators to develop initiatives that leverage technologies in the unlicensed spectrum such as whitespace and increase the use of WiFi to offload mobile data traffic for wireless usage.

Illiteracy:

There has been significant progress in increasing adult literacy rates across Sub-Saharan Africa in recent years. Despite these advances, around 37% of the adult population still lack basic literacy skills, equivalent to over 170 million people.
In addition to basic literacy, digital literacy is also significantly lacking amongst the population in the region and must be addressed.
Also, there needs to be adequate user education on privacy and security of their ‘things’.

Lack of Local Content:

The vast majority of digital content and mobile applications and services accessible across Sub-Saharan Africa have been developed in more advanced markets.
There has been little or no customization in terms of either the content or the languages available online. However, some localization approaches are now emerging.
RIM is working with a number of universities and schools across Africa in order to teach and educate students on mobile application development, as part of its Blackberry Academic Programme.

Low Internet Penetration Rate:

With an internet penetration rate of 16% in Africa and eight out of the 10 countries having the world’s lowest internet access rates, there are major barriers to the adoption of the IoT. However, there is clear growth potential.
Consulting firm McKinsey estimates that by 2025 Africa will have tripled internet penetration to over 50% or around 600m people, and as it does not have the same extensive infrastructure as Western countries, it can adapt its cities for IoT solutions more easily.

Technology Trends

The technology and innovation report captures noteworthy technologies that are transforming agriculture into a smarter environment through the whole platform of connectivity. Examples of such technologies include smart sensors, wireless sensor network, cognitive computing, Big Data and artificial intelligence (AI) .
The ability of IoT to provide real-time data, as well as perform monitoring and tracking functionalities will lead to smart agriculture of the future that is fully connected, eco-friendly and drives on improved productivity and efficiency. IoT establishes strong connectivity between the operational and digital platforms.
Increasing demand for automation technologies in the retail vertical to enable faster checkout and enhance overall customer experience is driving the growth of the market for smart beacons. As more and more agricultural firms adopt IoT, smart technology and automation, their chances of witnessing a security incident rises.
Today, as these agricultural firms look at optimizing operations, reduce operating costs, increase control over distributed operations and face an increasing compliance requirement with regulations, they cannot stay away from adopting IoT.

Regulatory Trends

African governments, agriculture development authorities, and state-owned enterprises are enjoying further cooperation with agro-processing organizations, financial institutions, and food and beverage manufacturers to promote the growth of sustainable agriculture initiatives. These initiatives aim at increasing productivity, food security, and efficiency of agricultural processes.
In addition, the government initiative to use remote sensing technology to collect ground data information and satellite image to detect agriculture condition in the region is expected to further boost the market growth.
The public-private partnerships provide an invaluable source of empowerment to the agricultural sector with more advanced technologies and improved management process, opening up new revenue streams. Such partnerships will also promote the adoption of IoT solutions.

Other Key Market Trends

Green Revolution:

It’s a suite of technologies and farming practices involving high-yielding crop varieties, agro-chemicals (fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides), irrigation, and mechanization. Industrial-scale agriculture, often using genetically modified (GM) crops, has delivered many benefits, but there are costs too.
These include high levels of inputs (which can become pollutants if inefficiently applied), the development of resistance to pesticides and herbicides, and the use of large, expensive, and environmentally damaging farm machinery.
These and other issues have sparked interest in sustainable intensification, where the goal is to increase production from existing farmland while minimizing environmental damage, thereby maintaining the land’s capacity to continue producing food, and also helping to preserve biodiversity.

Precision agriculture:

Precision agriculture is a key component of sustainable intensification. This combines remote sensing, IoT devices, robotics, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies into an integrated high-resolution crop production system.
According to the investment bank, a technology-driven crop yield improvement of 70% is achievable by 2050 via a combination of precision planting, fertilizer application, irrigation spraying, and autonomous driving applications, with adoption starting in developed markets .

Market Size and Forecast

The Africa IoT agriculture market is valued to be a $2.4 billion market in 2018. With enhanced geographic zones and a high client base, the Africa region is expected to exhibit growth in the internet of things (IoT) agriculture market. The market is anticipated to expand with a CAGR of 14.7% over the forecast period from 2019 and 2023.

AFRICA IoT IN AGRICULTURE MARKET KEY SEGMENTS

AFRICA IoT AGRICULTURE MARKET BY SYSTEM

Software:

In 2018, the software was the leading segment in the market, as it consists of numerous tools to control hardware such as yield monitors, soil sensors, water sensors, climate sensors that are used in a wide range of precision farming, smart greenhouse farming, and fish farming applications.
The market is estimated to grow from over $680 million in 2018 to over US$ 1.6 billion in 2023 at CAGR of 25%.
The software segment is anticipated to account for market share close to 29% of the IoT agriculture market primarily due to larger adoption of IoT in the manufacturing agriculture segment.

Automation and control systems:

The market was worth US$ 480 million in 2018 and will reach $600 million in 2023, growing at a pace of 5.2%. The major factors driving the growth of the Automation and control systems market are the growing increasing adoption of cloud platform across the region.
The cloud platform provides access to the device manufacturer and service providers for advanced analytics.
Digital optimization led by the IoT can boost the profitability of the utilities by approximately 20-30% through the automation of back-office processes.

Sensing and monitoring devices:

The market was valued at US$ 540 million in 2018 and will reach $900 million in 2023, growing at a CAGR of 12.3%.
The high demand for IoT sensors in the agriculture segment and the rising IoT market are strongly driving the growth of the IoT sensors market.
Additionally, increasing demand for the sensor in wearable technology will boost the growth of sensor segment. There are many types of sensors available such as temperature sensor, humidity sensor, pressure sensor, flow sensor, accelerometer, magnetometer, touch sensor, and others .

Livestock monitoring hardware:

Livestock monitoring hardware is expected to grow at CAGR of 7.1% in the forecast period due to the growth of the hardware to monitor the livestock health.
The livestock monitoring hardware segment, which includes global positioning system (GPS) and sensors, is estimated to grow from over $270 million in 2018 to over US$ 700 billion in 2023.

Fish farming hardware:

This segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10%. The segment was valued at US$200 million in 2018 and will reach $300 million in 2023.
The illness detection during fish farming and taking the preventive measure is anticipated to drive the market growth during the forecast period .

Smart greenhouse hardware:

This segment is expected to grow at CAGR of 17.5% in the forecast period specifically due to the development of the hardware to cultivate crops with minimal human intervention.
Climatic conditions such as temperature, humidity, luminosity, and soil moisture are continuously monitored inside a greenhouse. Variations in these conditions will trigger automated actions.
These actions will then evaluate the changes and implement corrective actions to maintain optimal conditions for plant growth. The market is estimated to grow from over $200 million in 2018 to over US $400 million in 2023.

AFRICA IoT AGRICULTURE MARKET BY APPLICATION

Precision farming:

The precision farming segment is presumed to witness the highest growth over the next five years, following an estimated CAGR of 17.7% from 2019 to 2023.
The market is expected to reach US$ 2.16 billion by 2023. Growth in this segment can be attributed to the developing IoT and information and communication (ICT) technologies to optimize returns and ensure the preservation of resources.
It entails the obtaining of real-time data on the conditions of crops, soil, and air. This approach aims at ensuring profitability and sustainability while protecting the environment .

Livestock monitoring:

The livestock monitoring segment, which includes global positioning system (GPS), and sensors is anticipated to be the rapidly growing segment.
IoT in livestock helps growers to monitor livestock health by detecting illness and taking the preventive measure is anticipated to drive the market growth during the forecast period.
The segment spending totals $510 million in 2018 and will see the fast growth over the five-year forecast period (2019-23) with a CAGR of 17.1 percent.
The livestock monitoring market is expected to grow from over $500 million in 2018 to US$ 1000 million in 2023.

Smart greenhouse:

The Africa smart greenhouse segment control microclimate conditions to maximize the production of fruits and vegetables and its quality.
The market was worth US$ 460 million in 2018 and will reach $740 million in 2023, growing at CAGR of 10.8%.
The smart greenhouse has allowed farmers to cultivate crops with minimal human intervention.

Fish farm monitoring:

The monitoring is the mechanism to monitor various aspects corresponding to the fish farm that offers real-time information to farmers to facilitate decision- making.
The Fish farm monitoring market as a whole was valued at US$ 360 million in 2018 and will reach $600 million in 2023, growing at 11.1%.
The growth in this segment is due to the reduced operational costs and enhanced productivity.

Market Outlook

Africa’s overall IoT spending in agriculture is projected to reach to US$ 4.5 billion by 2023 from US$ 2.4 billion in 2018, driven by lowered cost of technology as a result of on-going R&D in IoT, and efforts by various governments of the countries across the region to increase the quality and quantity of agriculture production
The software segment dominated the Internet of things (IoT) in the agriculture market in 2018 and is expected to retain its dominance throughout the forecast period of 2019-2023. The software segment is anticipated to account for market share close to 29% of the IoT agriculture market primarily due to larger adoption of IoT in the manufacturing agriculture segment .
The precision farming segment is anticipated to dominate IoT in the agriculture market during the forecast period, accounting for around 48% of the overall market revenue by 2023. Precision farming enables IoT, information technology, and communication to revolutionize the global agriculture sector, by optimizing its production and efficiency.
Livestock monitoring and integration of IoT system technology for detection of livestock location and health are also expected to grow significantly during the forecast period.
The most critical success factor all these segments depend on secure, scalable and reliable end-to-end integration solutions that encompass on-premise, legacy and cloud systems, and platforms.
In addition, the government initiative to use remote sensing technology to collect ground data information and satellite image to detect agriculture condition in the region is expected to further boost the market growth.

Technology Roadmap

Africa’s agriculture market is moving towards digital transformation, with IoT-based solutions used along with smart logistics, automation, and machine learning to transform the way goods are manufactured, stored and delivered. Thus, the companies that proactively invest in these technologies will be able to operate more securely and profitably across the supply chain.

Smart logistics:

Smart logistics uses technology to help distribution companies manage their fleets more efficiently by reducing costs for farmers and distributors, cutting fuel use and related carbon emissions and potentially preventing food losses.
Devices in trucks communicate with a central hub via machine-to-machine (M2M) connections, providing information on truck movements. Logistics companies supporting input providers, agro-dealers or processors can combine this with information about delivery schedules, loads, trips planned, routes and number of pick-ups to minimize truck movements.
Fewer trucks on the road and fewer trips mean less fuel is used. This keeps costs down and it is estimated that it could save 2.0 Mt of carbon in 2020. This is based on an anticipated 0.2 million connections .

Traceability and tracking system:

The technology can be used to track individual food products through the supply chain from grower to retailer.
Detailed tracking improves supply chain efficiency and helps smallholder farmers, food distributors, and retailers provide the traceability that is increasingly demanded by consumers.
Traceability can also help to identify and tackle chemical, hygiene or animal disease safety issues more quickly. In 2020, 0.8 million farmers could be connected to the service.

Mobile management of supplier networks:

Food buyers and exporters can use mobile phones to manage their networks of small-scale growers and help field agents collect information.
Support organizations and governments could benefit from electronic records about conditions for farmers in the region. Managing grower networks could save 0.1 Mt of carbon in 2020, with an anticipated 0.6 million connections to mobile supplier management services.

Distribution Chain Analysis

The distribution chains for agricultural inputs and products are complex and fragmented, with large networks of small-scale farms, retailers, aggregators, distributors, and exporters. This complexity, combined with inadequate communications, leads to gaps in information and inefficiencies .

The IoT Platforms are expected to become a high point in the development of IoT in agriculture. Leaders across the distribution chain have accelerated their planning in various ways IoT platforms will overturn the development modes of traditional industries and deeply change the future international divisions of farmers and the competition layout of international trade.

In general, transfer of the agricultural value to services based on software, hardware, and data. The maturity of cloud computing and big data grants the IoT platform with characteristics of small investment, short development time, and easy deployment as well as advantages in the data processing.

Competitive Landscape

Africa’s IoT in the agriculture market is highly competitive. The market has seen many mergers and acquisitions over recent years. The presence of global players operating across the globe makes this market appears highly competitive. The market is fragmented due to the majority of the manufacturing companies across the globe are using IoT. This makes the market highly competitive and allows companies to provide services in IoT.

The Internet of Things in the agriculture market has a highly fragmented vendor landscape. IoT early adopters are relying on growing revenue and increasing competitive advantage as the two main goals to drive IoT initiatives’ success. IoT early adopters are more likely to see and promote the value of better decision-making, improved operational efficiencies, increased competitive advantage, growth in revenues, and enhanced customer service setting the foundation for IoT initiatives to succeed.

African start-ups are gathering predictive intelligence that they believe will create an unassailable competitive advantage in key areas of agriculture and related industries. Predictions for the impact of weather, soil conditions, and livestock health will become increasingly accurate for Africa.

Competitive Factors

The emerging digital ecosystem requires a shift towards collaboration. The key players are increasingly introducing advanced products, which are leading to drive the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the agriculture market. These players are entering into collaborations or strategic partnerships for business expansion, which is increasing the level of consolidation. IoT advocates or early adopters say location intelligence and streaming data analysis to deliver the greatest business benefit.
Conversely, IoT early adopters aren’t expecting to see as significant benefits from data warehousing as they are from other technologies. Consistent with previous studies, both the broader respondent base and IoT early adopters place a high priority on reporting and dashboards. IoT early adopters also see the greater importance of visualization and end-user self-service.
Freemium strategies will intensify competition between software vendors. The software should be aware of the device they are running on in order to adapt to its resources. Cloud service deployment may be a good option when there are no connectivity problems.
Improving customer experiences (70%) and safety (56%) are the two areas enterprises are using data generated from IoT solutions most often today. The mobile network operators already have established distribution channels which can be used to distribute marketing and training information on these services. For example, M-PESA agents could advertise the benefits of mobile services for agriculture to their existing customers.
Various companies are focusing on organic growth strategies such as product launches, product approvals and others such as patents and events. Inorganic growth strategies activities witnessed in the market were acquisitions, and partnership & collaborations. These activities have paved the way for the expansion of business and customer base of market players.
The market players from internet of things agriculture market are anticipated to lucrative growth opportunities in the future with the rising demand for internet of things agriculture in the market.

Key Market Players

The IoT in the agriculture market ecosystem comprises players such as Cisco Systems, International Business Management Corporation (IBM), Huawei Technologies, Trimble Inc., Apollo Agriculture, Illuminum Greenhouses, Wakati, Farmcrowdy .

Company Profiles

IBM Corporation:

International Business Machines Corporation operates as an integrated technology and services company worldwide.
Its Cognitive Solutions segment offers a portfolio of enterprise artificial intelligence platforms, such as analytics and data management platforms, cloud data services, talent management, and industry solutions primarily under the Watson Platform, Watson Health, and Watson Internet of Things names.
This segment also offers transaction processing software for use in banking, airlines, and retail industries. The company’s Global Business Services segment offers business consulting services; delivers system integration, application management, maintenance, and support services .

Intel Corporation:

Intel Corporation offers computing, networking, data storage, and communication solutions worldwide.
It operates through Client Computing Group, Data Center Group, Internet of Things Group, Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group, Programmable Solutions Group, and All Other segments.
The company offers microprocessors, and system-on-chip and multichip packaging products. It also provides NAND flash memory products primarily used in solid-state drives; and programmable semiconductors and related products for communications, data center, industrial, and military markets .

Huawei Technologies:

Huawei Technologies USA, Inc. develops and manufactures various wireless network, fixed network, carrier software, and core network products, as well as services and solutions to telecommunications operators.
It offers mobile phones, tablets, wearables, mobile broadband, smart home products, and accessories for consumer markets; and telecom wireless network products, telecom fixed network products, core network products, carrier software, network energy products, IT products, enterprise wireless products, and enterprise network products for business markets .

Cisco Systems: Cisco Systems, Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells Internet Protocol (IP)-based networking and other products related to the communications and information technology (IT) industry and provide services associated with these products and their use. The Company provides products for transporting data, voice, and video within buildings, across campuses, and globally .

Trimble Inc.: Trimble Inc. provides advanced location-based software solutions. The Company integrates its positioning expertise in GPS, laser, optical and inertial technologies with application software, wireless communications, and services to provide complete commercial solutions. Trimble operates worldwide.

Farmcrowdy: Founded in 2016, Farmcrowdy is Nigeria’s 1st Digital Agriculture Platform focused on connecting farm sponsors with real farmers to increase food production while promoting youth participation in Agriculture .

Kitovu: Kitovu is a web/mobile based decentralized fertilizer/seedling warehousing system based in Nigeria that matches the right inputs to different farm locations owned by smallholder farmers in distant pocket locations, using geo-location and soil data collected by the mobile app.

Illuminum Greenhouses:

Illuminum Greenhouses is an agri-tech greenhouse and drip installation company in Kenya working with smallholder farmers to improve production and increase efficiency through the use of new modern technologies.
They construct affordable modern greenhouses and install automated drip irrigation kits for smallholder farmers by using locally available materials and solar-powered sensors.

Apollo Agriculture:

Apollo Agriculture helps farmers in emerging markets increase their profits.
They use agronomic machine learning, remote sensing, and mobile technology to help farmers access to credit, high-quality farm inputs, and customized advice.
Their first product is a customized package of farm inputs, farming advice, and credit delivered to farmers in Kenya.

Strategic Conclusion

Africa is expected to witness the moderate CAGR in the internet of things (IoT) agriculture market during the forecast period. With enhanced geographic zones and a high client base, the region is expected to exhibit strong growth in the internet of things (IoT) market.

Initiatives from the government sectors are leading to huge encouragement among consumers to adopt this technology. The growing population and incomes of consumers in this region, coupled with urbanization are factors accelerating the growth of the internet of things market in the region.

Apart from increase of amount and variety of devices in use, the major development areas of IoT are: development of network technologies specific to IoT, security, miniaturization and device integration, minimizing energy requirements, software functionality support and user friendliness, usage of open source software and open hardware devices. The demand for growing population can be successfully met if the ranchers as well as small farmers implement agricultural IoT solutions in a successful manner.

In terms of Africa’s digital agriculture journey, it has been ascertained that mobile connectivity and applications are enabling farmers to have access to market-related information, digital financial services, and innovative services such as tractor sharing.

Furthermore, the combination of ICT solutions such as precision equipment, Internet of Things (IoT), sensors, geo-positioning systems, data analytics, and drones is changing the way in which traditional farming is conducted in Africa.

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https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=325459191
https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/CSCO:US
https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/TRMB:US
https://agfundernews.com/10-agrtech-startups-for-smallholder-farmers-in-sub-saharan-africa.html

Appendix

List of abbreviations

CAGR: Compound Annual Growth Rate
IoT: Internet of things
US$: United States Dollar