Bio Euphrahim, left, who is based in San-Pédro, Ivory Coast, was one of several young farmers who were part of an entrepreneurship program in Quebec, where he learned how farms are using data-driven methods to tackle climate change.Bio Euphrahim
Bio Euphrahim remembers his father’s enthusiastic early morning calls as he and his six siblings prepared to work on the family’s cocoa farm before dawn broke over the lush red hills of western Ivory Coast. “Get up, get ready and love the fields, love the fields,” Mr. Euphrahim remembers him saying. But Mr. Euphrahim also recalls the hard labour that went into growing the cocoa beans.
Today, Mr. Euphrahim, 21, runs his own three-hectare farm in San-Pédro, a town in southwestern Ivory Coast, growing tomatoes, eggplants, okras and big sun peppers. In addition to the usual hardships of running a farm, Mr. Euphrahim has a problem his father and generations of farmers before him had not experienced: climate change. The extreme weather conditions mean a good production season is often followed by heavy and prolonged periods of rain that destroy his crops.
To tackle the problem, the enterprising Mr. Euphrahim is applying technological solutions he learned in a program in Quebec that uses climate data to plan crop schedules, making him part of a growing wave of youth in charge of agribusinesses who are turning to innovative methods to adapt to climate change. Mr. Euphrahim attended the 2024 Quebec–Senegal–Ivory Coast Entrepreneurship Forum on a bursary which funded his trip.
“It’s true that dad identifies as a farmer, but I have to define myself as an agricultural entrepreneur that is bringing new solutions and new ways,” he said.
Agriculture is the main source of livelihood for two-thirds of households in Ivory Coast. The West African country’s economy is also heavily dependent on the sector, making it sensitive to climate change, according to a 2023 report from the West Africa Regional Development and Business Delivery Office.
For coastal cities like San-Pédro, erosion and crop destruction are becoming increasingly common. The 2023 report associates this with fluctuating seasonal cycles driven by climate change.
Mr. Euphrahim operates a three-hectare farm where he grows tomatoes, egg plants, okras and big sun peppers. In coastal cities like San-Pédro, fluctuating seasonal cycles are contributing to increased erosion and crop destruction, according to a report.Bio Euphrahim
In Quebec, Mr. Euphrahim and other farmers aged 19-23 visited the Agricola Cooperative Farm, a youth-led farm that produces organic vegetables and flowers on nearly 65 hectares in Papineauville, in the Outaouais region. The co-operative uses weather forecasts in its day-to-day planning and gathers yearly personalized data to help adjust to climate change. Mr. Euphrahim said a similar long-term predictive method is scalable in West Africa.
“In Canada, before growing crops, they try to calculate and better gain control of the seasons,” Mr. Euphrahim said. “That’s what we don’t do here.”
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After returning home, Mr. Euphrahim requested official data every four or five months from the San-Pédro regional agriculture minister’s office to help predict climate patterns. Mr. Euphrahim’s team runs the data through predictive models like aWhere, a platform specializing in agricultural intelligence. This kind of agro-climatological data can prove useful for farmers on a larger scale, said Mr. Euphrahim.
In Ivory Coast, official climate data is provided through SODEXAM, a government agency overseeing national weather forecasting. While SODEXAM provides the data free of charge, services from Ivorian agri-tech startups come at a cost but often use advanced drone technology to monitor crop conditions and gather field data.
A long-term weather prediction method similar to what Agricola Cooperative Farm in Quebec uses is scalable in West Africa, Mr. Euphrahim says.Bio Euphrahim
Mr. Euphrahim is not alone in this climate-conscious wave of youth-led farming.
Based in Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory Coast, Doumbia Amy Séphora, 24, is doing her part in fighting against the effects of drought. On the rooftop of an Abidjan building, Ms. Séphora employs a hydroponic farming method that grows plants without soil. With less than 70 square metres of space, she has built pipes that, stacked on top of each other, circulate nutrient-rich water to feed more than 450 heads of lettuce, no soil required.
“We are using 90 per cent less water than typical farming, because the same water is circulating in the pipes,” Ms. Séphora said, explaining that this method could prove useful in the event of a drought where water preservation would be a priority.
Like Mr. Euphrahim, Ms. Séphora has experience with traditional farming practices. She said overusing the soil is harmful in the long run and hydroponic farming could be an alternative solution.
“I have seen a lot of people outside Africa or even in East Africa that are doing it, and it’s working there,” Ms. Séphora said. “But before we say it can work, I need to do it myself and validate it to see if it’s working here with our environment.”
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But for Mr. Euphrahim, tackling climate change in his hometown holds a deeper personal significance rooted in his childhood.
“When your father is a farmer and when you see how much dad suffers from farming, it doesn’t make you want to go into farming,” he said. “But I want to prove to young people that we can practice agriculture and live fully.”
He points to his own success as a self-made agricultural entrepreneur with multiple international awards, his own farm and two non-profit businesses.
Today the melody of his father’s morning calls echo in his ears, not as a memory of hardship, but as a quiet whisper that would lead him to the profession he now calls his reason for being.