# Agriculture 4.0: Is Sub-Saharan Africa Ready?
## 2 Prospects and Challenges for Agriculture 4.0 Adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa  
Agriculture in SSA is mostly rainfed, and in many countries is dominated by smallholder farmers who tend to have low levels of irrigation [23], and face biophysical and institutional challenges on top of the recent neglect of the sector [24]. These challenges include lack of insurance [25] and inefficient credit markets [26,27]; degraded soils, biodiversity loss [28]; and climate change [29, 30, 31]. Together these challenges exacerbate efforts to reduce food insecurity [7,32].  
Different strategies have been employed by smallholder farmers across SSA to tackle these various challenges. For example, sustainable intensification of agriculture using new technologies has been highlighted in the literature as essential for producing additional food without reducing biodiversity and other ecosystem services [11,33]. In some African countries, this has included the promotion and adoption of integrated pest management, conservation agriculture, agroforestry, and system improvements [34,35]. Conservation agriculture (CA) which involves minimum tillage, diversified crop rotations and soil surface cover has been widely practiced in southern parts of Africa [36, 37, 38]. This broad suite of technologies and practices has economic (such as reduced labour requirements), agronomic (such as improved water conservation), and environmental (such as reduced soil erosion) benefits. These practices also reduce soil degradation and improve climate change management through carbon sequestration.  
To address a lack of irrigation in arid and semi-arid areas, in the western Sudano-Sahelian zones, rainwater harvesting techniques such as _Zai_ (planting pits) are utilised in Burkina Faso [39]; in northern Nigeria, integrated crop-livestock systems in a circular economy act as insurance against failure of one system and at the same time, improve the water holding capacity of soils for efficient food production [40,41]. In eastern Africa, genetically modified (GM) water-efficient maize seed has been promoted among smallholder farmers by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in partnership with Monsanto PLC to adapt to rainfall variability [42]. Finally, farmers in SSA do increasingly have access to rural micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs)that seek to provide financing [26], better credit, and weather-indexed-based insurance against climate variability [25].  
In the rest of this section, we explore the extent to which agriculture 4.0 technologies can complement, replace or improve upon these and other strategies that focus on sustainable increases in agricultural production; the scarcity of natural resources; adapting to climate change; and avoiding food waste [4; 14]. We first consider scale, in particular, the reality that many farmers in SSA are smallholders, many intercrop, and within-field crop diversity is common, which may hinder the broad adoption of agriculture 4.0 technologies [43]. Second, we focus on finance, the reality that agriculture 4.0 technologies tend to be financially intensive [19], and the historically poor access to capital that smallholder farmers in SSA have faced. Our third area of exploration is the extent to which African countries have the digital infrastructure in place. Fourth, we address the institutions, governance, and ethics surrounding agricultural technology adoption; and finally, we explore the extent to which Africa's farmers have the education and skills needed to embrace agriculture 4.0.