Minister of Food and Agriculture Visits DIPPER Lab at KNUST
The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Hon. Eric Opoku, visited the Distributed IoT Platforms, Privacy & Edge-Intelligence Research (DIPPER Lab) at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology as part of efforts to commercialize innovations from research institutions across the country to promote digitalization of Agriculture.
He was led through the facility by Prof. Eric Tutu Tchao, Scientific Director of the lab, and the DIPPER team.
During the tour, the minister observed several technological innovations developed by the lab.
He was shown the “FarmSense” device, designed to assist farmers with real-time monitoring of soil nutrients, moisture and other parameters.
The toolkit was formally presented to him by the Management team of the Lab.
Prof. Tchao expressed the lab’s readiness to work in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture as part of the FarmSense commercialization and capacity building efforts.
He said the lab is prepared to collaborate in scaling the FarmSense technology across Ghana’s farming communities.
In his remarks, the Minister thanked the lab for its efforts.
He reaffirmed his Ministry’s openness to collaboration with research institutions to boost agricultural productivity and strengthen food security. He indicated the Ministry commitment to ensure FarmSense gets into the hands of Agric Extension Officers across the country.
The Minister also reiterated the need for the lab to offer trainings to Agric Extension Officers on how to use FarmSense.
The visit underscores the DIPPER Lab and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture’s focus on building partnerships to leverage Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things to modernize agriculture in Ghana and support smallholder farmers through technology.
