The AICCRA Zambia AgData Hub was featured in the print edition of the Zambia Daily Mail on 25 July, republished here. 

---

The onset of the rainy season, its duration and the quantity of rainfall expected are the three main concerns of Zambian farmers each year. However, these variables are not always easy to share by agricultural support services when not enough climate relevant data for agricultural activities is collected and recorded to give an accurate forecast.

Currently the main challenge concerning the collection and application of agricultural data is that Zambian institutions working in the areas of climate and agriculture development deal with incomplete information and also work in silos.

One way to solve this is through the establishment of an Ag-Data Hub that acts as a central platform for digitising and integrating agricultural data collected from key institutions to improve agro-advisory services to Zambian crop, livestock and fish farmers.

These include institutions such as the Zambia Meteorological Department (ZMD) in the Ministry of Green Economy, the Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Fisheries in the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, and the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU).

The concept of establishing a central Ag-Data Hub is being spearheaded through the World Bank-funded Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project in Zambia, being implemented by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and partners, including the International Crops Research Institute for the SemiArid Tropics (ICRISAT), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), WorldFish Center, the International Livestock Research Institute, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) and the Government of Zambia.

The aim of the AICCRA project is to enhance knowledge, technologies and practices to build the resilience of agriculture and food systems in the face of changing climate.

Amos Ngwira is a systems agronomist with the International Crops Research Institute for the SemiArid Tropics (ICRISAT), a non-profit, non-political organisation that conducts agricultural research for development in the dry lands of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, which together with IWMI and other partners is co-facilitating the establishment of the AgData Hub under AICCRA.

“We came up with the idea of this data hub to digitise the agricultural sector and to guide growth and engagement in agriculture initiatives in Zambia.

Simultaneously, if we look at integrating data at national scale for various agricultural value chains, it will also help us drive decision support systems and tools that will generate agro-advisories for the intended users, the farmers, as well as input suppliers, offtakers and financial service providers,” Dr Ngwira says.

At a consultative meeting held in February this year, partners for hosting and implementing the Ag-Data Hub were identified. Stakeholders at the meeting recommended that the hub should be hosted by the SMART Zambia Institute, whose mandate is to manage and promote electronic government services and processes and to coordinate e-government and information and communication technology matters in public bodies.

SMART Zambia assistant director in systems development, Kaluba Shiliya, says the Ag-Data Hub is an important data collection platform that would provide vital data for the Zambian farmer and the agriculture sector as a whole.

“If we have data that informs us, we can provide this information to our farmers to help them plan. For instance, we can advise them more accurately on the crops to plant depending on the predictions or forecasts we make based on the data collected. Having this data hub will play a major role in improving agriculture in Zambia,” Mr Shiliya says.

The Ag-Data Hub would provide some general key benefits to Zambia such as providing agriculture with a shared and sovereign technological infrastructure to support the development of digital agriculture in Zambia. It would also develop partnerships with effective workflows and use of resources among government ministries, development and private agencies.

Additionally, fair access to agricultural data to encourage the creation of climate information services for the agriculture sector would be provided, and an improvement in outreach of climate-informed agro-advisories to inform context-specific farm management decisions would be witnessed.

Principal agriculture officer in the Ministry of Agriculture, Morton Mwanza, says the ministry collects a lot of data, most of which is found in group focused survey reports.

“The data is on the different crops grown in the country by Zambian small-scale farmers. It also gives us the hectarage of each crop grown, recorded at district and provincial level, and the production for a particular year. Other key details such as soil types and information on pests and diseases are also collected and recorded,” Mr Mwanza says.

He says this information is important for Zambian farmers as it gives them a forecast from climatic conditions and climatic trends and other related information, and is also helpful to the ministry for planning purposes.

The present lack of data integration by key institutions makes the process of accessing data cumbersome and time consuming and further stresses the need for an Ag-Data Hub.

However, some specific challenges need to be addressed before the Ag-Data Hub can be successfully set up. Creating buy-in and building capacity of national agencies to boost their technological readiness is one challenge.

Another is the absence of governance policy legal frameworks and clearly established integrated systems. Additionally, datasets are scattered across organisations and exist in non-standardised formats and platforms and there is also the lack of a data sharing policy across value chains.

Meteorologist in the Zambia Meteorological Department, Kenneth Sinachikupo, says the department has helpful climate data that, if loaded onto the data hub, would make it easier for farmers to access and improve their planning.

“We also have information shared in the form of forecasts and advisories. We give the first early warning to the country in the form of the seasonal weather forecast because this covers a six months outlook of what the weather will be in relation to global systems,” Mr Sinachikupo explains.

The department is already making use of climate technologies such as the climate data management tool that helps the department process real data in real time. Another is the map room that was developed in collaboration with International Research Institute for Climate and Society, which is a collection of maps and other figures used to monitor climate and societal conditions presently and in the recent past.

The maps and figures can be manipulated and are linked to original data.

Even if an individual or entity is primarily interested in data rather than figures, it is a good place to see which datasets are particularly useful for monitoring current conditions and would assist research on climate vulnerabilities and food security.

Mr Sinachikupo says such data would be of additional value when made accessible in the proposed Ag-Data Hub. Consultations among key stakeholders are ongoing to address all the challenges in the way of establishing the Ag-Data Hub.

Once these obstacles are overcome, a data ecosystem that supports the blending of climate science and agriculture as the first of its kind in southern Africa will be created.