“Agriculture is the backbone of the African economy”, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and combined with the challenges of a growing population, the organization is now joining forces with the African Union to develop a way of mechanizing farming throughout the continent in a sustainable way.

More than 75 percent of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa use only hand tools, and with “zero hunger” the target by 2025, the UN African Union has pledged to banish the hand hoe.

The symbolic act will help the continent to feed itself, allowing farmers to get new equipment that will make the work simpler but also more efficient and attract greater numbers of women and young people to work in the sector, says FAO.

FAO’s Charlotta Lomas sat down to talk modernization and sustainability, with Josefa Sacko, African Union Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, and Joseph Mpagalile, an agriculture engineer and expert at FAO.