Farmers to benefit from crop malnutrition identification project

Researchers at the Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) have launched a project aimed at helping farmers understand the impact of climate change and identify nutrition deficiencies through information.

The three-year Digitally Enabled Resilience and Nutrition Policy (DERPIn) project funded by GIZ at euros 40,000, is expected to help farmers get the right information regarding nutrition deficiencies beginning with maize and cassava.

According to Dr Isaac Shinyekwa, the Senior Research fellow at EPRC, the farmers under the project will be required to predict the challenges resulting from climate change and be able to forward the information to the centres for quick remedy.

The project, he said, is aimed at creating a suite of digital tools to support policy innovation that addresses challenges posed by climate change for food and nutrition security in Africa.

He explained that although Africa contributes only 3.8 % of global greenhouse gas emissions, African countries are experiencing vulnerability to extreme weather and other climate-induced shock which undermine agricultural output and food security.

“To preserve livelihoods and promote resilience, African governments need adequate data that will enable them to anticipate and respond effectively to climate shocks.

Digital technologies, big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning can be leveraged to provide timely, reliable and spatially disaggregated data analysis that will strengthen countries’ capacity to plan and better address shocks to food systems and livelihoods,” he said.

The project, according to him, aims at generating an integrated and customisable digital infrastructure of data and analytical tools that will equip public and private sector actors with the evidence needed to develop policy innovations that effectively adapt and respond to climate shocks.

(L-R) Babacar Ceesay the Senior Manager information systems Akademia, Khadim Dia the senior Associate scientist Akadeniya, interact with one of their colleagues during the inception workshop at EPRC. (Photo by Agnes Nantambi)

The DERPIn project is being implemented by AKADEMIYA2063 in collaboration with the Pan-African Farmers’ Organisation (PAFO) and research partners in five African countries like Benin, Ghana, Malawi, Uganda and Senegal.

Speaking during the project Inception workshop for farmers and other stakeholders on Wednesday, Shinyekwa said the project will seek to identify country-specific constraints and specifics that may affect the design of customised data platforms, knowledge products and policy innovations.

Shinyekwa said the project is a pilot and if it succeeds and scaled up within the national systems, it will cover the entire country.

“As of now, we have identified the districts of Mubende and Masindi to pick data from cassava and maize and eventually to other crops.

We want to prove in these locations whether those are the crops we see in GIS so that we can model, to be able to carry out the sensitivity analysis like what happens to these crops if climate change elements destroy them,” he said.

Ambrose Asingizibwe, the national executive of the National Alliance for Agricultural Co-operatives in Uganda, said the Government has tried to put in place mechanisms and instruments that handle issues of climate change and nutrition.

He, however, said the nutrition policy was made very many years ago, but people are dying of malnutrition in Karamoja noting that despite the laws, there is a big gap in terms of reducing the incidents.

“This project has come to support the Government in bridging the gap in information so that they are empowered with information to help them predict and also take immediate action in incidences of climate change,” he said.

According to him, the project is expected to train farmers and empower them with information on how to address the challenges they face.

EPRC executive director, Sarah Sewanyana, said the project has come at a time when it is very much needed.