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5G rollout to propel agritech development in Africa.
A commitment by a major Ethiopian telecommunications services provider to roll out a 5G network across Addis Ababa has been welcomed by the country’s agricultural sector.
Ethio Telecom made the announcement earlier this month pointing out that it was “committed to seeing a digital Ethiopia”.
A total of 150 5G towers will be active in and around Addis Ababa. Ethio Telecom claims coverage of around 97% of Ethiopia with 3G and 4G, with over 60.8 million subscribers and about 25 million data and internet users.
The move has been welcomed by OCP Ethiopia, a subsidiary of the OCP Group. The Moroccan-founded group is a state-owned fertiliser producer, phosphate rock mining firm and phosphoric acid producer.
The company also recently launched an agritech fund, in partnership with Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Morocco.
A shot in the arm for agritech projects
“We are tremendously excited about the introduction of 5G internet to more countries, especially where there is such interesting agricultural technology development happening,” said OCP Group CEO Karim Lotfi Senhadjito to FoodForAfrika.com.
“We have a number of ongoing agritech projects, including the launch of a digital commerce platform in Kenya, and another project in Côte d’Ivoire where we are using satellites to pilot new soil-testing methods.”
In Ethiopia, OCP group has a number of stakeholders it regularly engages with. These include but are not limited to the ministry of agriculture, public entreprises administration agency, ministry of water irrigation and energy, Ethiopian Agricultural Businesses Corporation, ATA, and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research.
The Internet of Things (IoT), or internet-enabled connectivity between everyday devices, can benefit agriculture in this regard. If rolled out, agriculture in Ethiopia could benefit a great deal from this exciting development.
This article was written by Lucinda Dordley and originally published on FoodForAfrika.com.
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