01Enabling agriculture
“What this sector does for South Africa is phenomenal, and we haven’t even reached the peak,” said Jaroshen Naidoo of Vodacom Business. Vodacom’s vision is a digitally connected agriculture value chain: smarter farms, stronger communities, greater productivity and a sustainable future. Customers, he said, are not buying internet. They are buying continuity, productivity, visibility and growth.
Not five systems. One operational picture.Steffen Engelbrecht, Advannotech
02Shared challenges, one picture
Steffen Engelbrecht, Head of IoT at Advannotech, presenting with Vodacom Business, described the challenges that cut across every kind of farm: water, climate, costs, data, labour, security, productivity and sustainability. For livestock farms that means animal loss and theft, no real-time location data and labour-intensive monitoring across large, remote areas.
His answer is “not five systems, one operational picture”: data from crop sensors, soil probes, weather stations, rumen capsules and smart ear tags fused into insight and action. A rumen bio-capsule that monitors an animal’s internal temperature can flag illness before it’s visible, and satellite connectivity, deployed at the EARN training farm in Centurion, extends IoT into areas with little or no network coverage.
03From the summit floor
Jaroshen Naidoo described Vodacom’s shift from telco to “techco”, and the urgency of capturing generational farming knowledge with technology. RMIS showed what a sector-wide digital backbone can look like, with more than 15 000 production units registered through GS1 Global Location Numbers, outbreak mapping and a vaccine-ordering portal.
Prof Cobus Oberholster pointed to the barrier underneath it all: trust. “Who owns the data?” Full technology adoption among commercial farmers is still under 10%, often because of real or perceived cost. Dr Riaan du Preez named the two strongest levers for repairing a broken system: information, and collaboration, “relationships, relationships, relationships”. And the ARC’s close to 1 000 weather stations, some with about a century of records, show how much public data could be put to work if access is managed responsibly.
04Data that builds trust
The ARC’s beef improvement scheme, presented by Dr Keoagile Modisakeng, shows how on-farm data becomes genetic evaluations that improve herd efficiency and profitability. And as Dr Andrea Campher of Standard Bank argued, credible data is also what reduces uncertainty for lenders and unlocks capital.
Key takeaways
- Start with the farm’s real problem, then add connectivity and data step by step.
- Bring data sources together into one operational picture.
- Use health sensors and traceability data to act early.
- Treat trusted farm data as an asset for finance and markets.