Technology can help optimize agriculture by allowing the actors concerned to have reliable data, in terms of agricultural land map and yield estimation, supports the geographer and specialist in geomatics Labaly Touré.
Agriculture “can be optimized through the mapping of agricultural land, estimation and precision of returns,” said the teacher-researcher at the University of Sine-Saloum El Hadji Ibrahima Niass, evoking the “possibilities” offered by satellites and drones for example.
He intervened Thursday during a special meeting of the Regional Development Committee (CRD) relating to the theme “Spatial in the service of agriculture”. A meeting organized as part of the national tour of the space caravan called “SpaceBus”.
Mr. Touré, also the coordinator of the geomatic sector of this University of the Center of Senegal, welcomed the holding of this meeting which, according to him, made it possible to explain the possible applications of space in the field of agriculture.
He underlined the need to encourage the awareness process and the training of actors who manage these skills at the decentralized level.
In the opinion of Doctor Labaly Touré, it is possible to achieve “reliable data on agriculture thanks to spatial and satellite data”, in accordance with the idea that geospatial technologies can help innovate in agricultural practices.
According to him, “the data is at the heart of the decision and if we do not master it, we do things in the very little.”
“The University of Sine-Saloum El Hadji Ibrahima Niass is at the heart of research and innovation. We are developing tools that we cannot keep for ourselves. We will have to disseminate so that the actors appropriate them,” said Labaly Touré.
“The best thing is that these actors appropriate these technologies first to see to what extent, on a daily basis, they can implement them. We have developed tools that are free, which will be made available to them to be able to do simple analyzes on agricultural statistics on the scale of a territory,” said the specialist.
