The Tunisian Agri-Tech Week opened in Dakar on Sunday 13 March and ends on 17 March. It aims to establish a partnership between Tunisian technological companies in the agri-tech and stakeholders in the Senegalese agricultural sector to make Senegalese agriculture more competitive.
Several Tunisian start-ups and Senegalese companies are in Dakar since Sunday 13 March and will stay there until 17 March for the Tunisian Agri-Tech week. The latter includes a rich programme of B-to-B meetings, conferences and field visits. The reflections are particularly focused on topics such as:“How to accelerate agro-industry in Africa”, “The Senegalese-Tunisian partnership, a tool to access the African agri-tech market”.
The main objective of this event is to strengthen South-South cooperation in agricultural technologies. In other words, it is a question of creating a dynamic of cooperation between the private sectors of the two countries by providing Senegalese farmers with technological solutions that can enable them to improve their competitiveness through the use of natural resources. This first stage of the project focuses on Senegal because the country offers the most opportunities for partnerships in the sub-region.
In addition, the other objective is to bring together Tunisian and Senegalese technology companies to build technical, financial and commercial partnerships in order to achieve food self-sufficiency in a context of rapid population growth and increasing effects of climate change.
The first day of work on Sunday was marked by a visit by the Tunisian delegation to the Syngenta Senegal Hub Farm project in Rufisque, a region located 25 km east of Dakar. At the end of the visit, the delegation informed the market gardeners that the methods used to produce tomatoes, carrots etc. absorb a lot of water and energy. This affects the cost of production and therefore the price of the product to the end consumer.
Walid Gaddas, Director of Stecia International and head of the Tunisian delegation, stressed that small-scale producers can improve their income by opting for solutions that save 40% of water.
“The solutions proposed by Tunisian startups allow for the rational use of water resources in order to reduce production costs and improve the yield and income of producers,” he said.
It can be said that the digitalisation of the agricultural sector can make a difference in terms of improving income and accessibility of products to all.
In addition, the Agri-Tech Tunisia project is financially supported by the European Union and will be extended to other West African countries to accelerate the digitalisation of agriculture in the sub-region.
