Olivier Mendoo from Cameroon and Zimbabwe's Tungamirai Eric Mupona are redefining South-South collaboration through an agricultural odyssey in Zhejiang Province. The Peking University PhD students recently toured cutting-edge smart farms in eastern China, documenting innovations from AI-powered crop monitoring to drone-assisted irrigation systems.
'African nations can adapt these scalable models,' says Mendoo, pointing to automated greenhouses growing strawberries with 40% less water usage. 'It's not just technology – it's about integrated systems linking farmers to markets through mobile platforms.'
Their journey through Lishui County revealed village cooperatives using blockchain for food traceability and vertical farms yielding 8x traditional output. Mupona emphasizes practical lessons: 'China shows how tech can empower smallholder farmers without displacing communities. That's crucial for African food security.'
With 60% of Africa's population under 25, the pairing of Chinese agricultural tech with Africa's youth demographic emerges as a key theme. The investigation comes as China-Africa trade in agri-tech equipment grew 22% year-on-year in Q1 2024.
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
