Emmanuel Richard Nasolwa - Tanzania

Emmanuel Richard Nasolwa comes from Tanzania where he lives with his farmer parents and five sisters. Having grown up on a farm, he developed an interest in agriculture at a very young age. Therefore, he got a Bachelor’s Degree in Agronomy at the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) in Tanzania. Currently, he is working as a Research Technician at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) under a PhD researcher at KULeuven University in Belgium and Sandwich to the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) in Tanzania focusing on banana husbandry.

Emmanuel would like to explore the use of innovation in transforming the agriculture sector in Tanzania and beyond. He already knows how to use drones for data collection but joined the Academy to learn how to build drones and related safety management/precautions during the flying exercise.

“Through the use of this innovation, I will be able to collect data and translate it with algorithms into useful information that can be used to improve farming. The information ranges from monitoring of crop health, vegetation indices, plant height, plant scouting, crop water needs, and soil analysis,” he says.

He adds that the knowledge and skills gained through ADDA will allow him to go back and help farmers and related stakeholders to use their time and resources more effectively and efficiently. This information will help farmers to reduce farming costs and increase productivity and ultimately improve the livelihood of families (food and income) and contribute to the reduction of malnutrition.

Tanzanian farmers constantly struggle to control pests.  Emmanuel plans to use drones in prevention and control of pests and extend the same knowledge to spatial and temporal distribution of species (plants and animals) in natural reserves such as forests, savannah grasses, national parks and games in Tanzania.