The peasants of the Ivory Coast hope that tech young people seduce young people back to the fields

There were dozens of students from the ivory coast against the clock to design robots for the farms of the future in the world’s leading coconut-producing nation.

With every team to create the best bot blueprint, the competition is part of a broader advance to seduce the large population of young people through the West African nation that has decreased from agricultural life.

Although agriculture has long been the pillar of the ivory’s economy, many young Ivorers have turned their back on fruit growth and the trees, which were discouraged by the hard work and the slow pace of progress.

“I come from a family of farmers,” said 20-year-old student Pele Ouattara at the event in Abidjan, the largest city in the Ivory Coast.

“My passion for robotics emerged from my desire to improve the conditions under which my parents were previously managed,” he added.

In a competing team that was several meters away, the 24 -year -old classmate feared Urielle Diaidh, 24, the Ivorian agriculture “risks over time when modern technologies are not adopted”.

Conducts from the cultivation of cocoa, rubber and cashew nuts, which almost half of the Ivors work with jobs in agriculture in one way or another.

But the country’s farms have slowly modernized. According to the National Center for Agronomic Research, less than 30 percent of companies are mechanized.

And although three quarters of the Ivecher are under 35, the sector is fighting to update an aging workforce.

The digital transformation engineer Paul-Marie Ouattara, surrounded by a flood of tiny white robots on their round rounds, said that he had seen “a real enthusiasm for young people” to bring agriculture into the 21st century.

This “agriculture 4.0”, which competition wants to promote, is improved “by new technologies, improved whether they are robots, drones, artificial intelligence or data processing,” said the 27-year-old.

All of this “will help the farmer”, existed Ouattara, who works for a private business that has sponsored the competition.

– Change, but for whom? – –

However, agriculture has not quite given up young people – only in the old way of ordering the country.

Stephane Kounandi Coulibaly, director of innovation and partnerships of the private sector, said in the Ivorian digital transition ministry that he had seen a boom in agricultural start-ups.

Most of them were founded by young people, he added.

The trend “Agritech” reflects, which are already in motion on the entire continent, including Benin, Nigeria and Kenya, and Abidjan organizes a forum for African start-ups at the beginning of July.