Modern Agriculture & AgriTech: Feed Africa, Build Wealth
Healthy soil, climate-smart farming, irrigation, poultry and fish, greenhouses and hydroponics, processing and value addition, agritech tools and running a profitable farm business.
What you'll learn
- Explain why agribusiness is one of Africa's biggest opportunities — including roles that need no farm
- Build and protect healthy soil with compost, cover and rotation
- Apply climate-smart and integrated pest management practices
- Plan simple drip irrigation and solar water pumping
- Start poultry or fish farming with good biosecurity and records
- Judge when greenhouses and hydroponics make sense
- Reduce post-harvest losses and add value through processing
- Use agritech tools and calculate a farm's gross margin
Course content
Part 1. Why agriculture is Africa's biggest opportunity6 lessons
- Why Africa must use agribusiness and youth to become an economic powerhouse (Dr Akinwumi Adesina)by The New Africa Channel9 min
- How one nation's farming revolution can feed Africa (Wandile Sihlobo, TEDx)by TEDx Talks12 min
- Agriculture in the next century — Africa (John Dumelo, TEDx)by TEDx Talks11 min
- 10 agriculture business ideas that don't require farmingby The New Africa Wealth9 min
- Agriculture is a business, not a punishment
- Quiz: the opportunity
Part 2. Soil: the foundation of every farm6 lessons
- 3 ways to build soil healthby GrowVeg8 min
- Techniques to improve soil health — learning from the landby Innovation for Agriculture16 min
- Compost masterclassby GrowVeg13 min
- How regenerative agriculture brings life back to the land (Gabe Brown, TED)by TED15 min
- Feed the soil, and the soil feeds the crop
- Quiz: soil
Part 3. Climate-smart farming and pest management6 lessons
- Climate-smart agriculture explained (FAO)by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations5 min
- Climate-smart practices and systems (FAO)by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations15 min
- What is integrated pest management (IPM)?by Futura-Shop4 min
- FAO: Agroecology knowledge hub
- Farming with a changing climate
- Quiz: climate-smart farming
Part 4. Water and irrigation3 lessons
Part 5. Poultry and fish farming6 lessons
- How to start a successful broiler farm on a small budgetby KIAI AFRICA19 min
- 5 things I wish I knew before starting chicken farmingby COROBE POULTRY FARM14 min
- Broiler chicken farming guide (Farm Kenya)by Farm Kenya21 min
- How a Nigerian couple started a profitable fish farmby Chidera Nwafor18 min
- The rules that decide profit or loss
- Quiz: livestock and fish
Part 6. Greenhouses and hydroponics3 lessons
Part 7. Post-harvest, processing and value addition5 lessons
- The impact of post-harvest loss and solutions (Channels TV Earthfile)by Channels Television5 min
- Solar cold rooms eliminating post-harvest loss (ColdHubs)by ColdHubs Limited3 min
- The TAAT mobile cassava processing plantby TAAT Africa10 min
- Cassava value addition and maximising profitby Farm Kenya14 min
- Quiz: post-harvest and value addition
Part 8. AgriTech: data, drones and digital markets3 lessons
Part 9. Agribusiness: records, markets and money3 lessons
Part 10. Final project1 lesson
Capstone project: Capstone: your farm or agribusiness plan. You finish by building something real; a mentor reviews it before your certificate is issued.
About this course
Agriculture employs more Africans than any other sector, yet the continent spends tens of billions of dollars a year importing food it could grow. Closing that gap is one of the greatest wealth-creation opportunities of our time — and it needs young people with modern skills. In this course, Dr Akinwumi Adesina of the African Development Bank, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, TED speakers, the TAAT cassava programme and successful African farmers in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya show you how modern farming really works: building healthy soil, farming with a changing climate, drip irrigation, poultry and fish farming, greenhouses and hydroponics, cutting post-harvest losses, processing for higher value, using agritech and data, and keeping records that make a farm profitable. Your capstone is a real farm business plan. About 5 hours of video plus practice.