In order to use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for development (ICT4D) in the Agricultural Sector and make access to digital technologies more equitable, the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE has restated the Agency’s commitment to ensure sustainable solutions for smallholder farmers in the country.

Inuwa reiterated this during a working visit on him by the Country Director, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Mrs Dede Ekoue.

The Director-General maintained that NITDA has continued to undertake several initiatives towards supporting smallholder farmers and enhancing productivity within the farming sector.

“It is part of our mandate to improve National Food Security through Information Technology (I.T) because globally today, I.T is regarded as one of, if not the best tool(s) when it comes to enhancing productivity in Agriculture, as it is evident, how Smart Agriculture is really increasing food production around the world”.

“We strongly believe that if we in Nigeria embrace this technology, it can be a game changer in the sector”, Inuwa asserted.

Beyond utilising ICT to improve food productivity for subsistence farmers, the DG was also assertive that it will attract the youthful population to take up farming as a business which he said would somewhat retire the narrative that ‘farming is an activity solely for people in suburbs or villages’.

“With technology, you can have a farm at the backyard of your house in the city, you can even explore vertical farming, in developed countries, some do theirs on the rooftop or indoors”.

“So, the technology is available and with the strong belief in our ingenuities, we can do something similar if not better”, Inuwa averred.

While briefing his guests on some of NITDA’s collaborations and efforts in the sector, Inuwa recalled that the Agency had since started a relationship with the Ministry of Agriculture which took off with the development of “Smart Agric Strategy” for them, followed by some initiatives like NAVSA, e.t.c.

“We also collaborate with private sectors, multinational companies and high institutions like Universities, where we leverage on their research centres to create clusters and the ecosystem as well, as we always urge them to come for proof of concept on different technologies”.

“Suffice it to say that we strongly believe in collaboration because we know that the success of digital transformation does not rest on the individual but the collective approach of the ecosystem, and that explains why we always insist on carrying everyone along with us”, the Director-General avowed.

About the partnership request by IFAD for the Agency to participate in its forthcoming policy dialogue, and explore other possible channels/areas to collaborate on, the NITDA Boss appreciated the hand of friendship extended to the Organisation and confirm the Agency’s readiness to come on board, noting that it is NITDA’s culture to partner any individual, group or body that has a viable proposition targeted at adding value to Nigeria and Nigerians.

“It is not only about the policy dialogue, when you are done with that, like the last one we were part of, don’t forget to reach out to us during your capacity building plans because we can benefit from that as well, especially to update the knowledge of our teammates”

“The goal is to expand our horizons and we are already working with Abuja Technology Village to build all these technologies on the farmland we secured, so, this visit will definitely help us know how to go about that”, Inuwa said.

He assured the IFAD team of NITDA’s unflinching resolve to deepen the partnership between the two organisations and welcome other bodies they highlighted would be brought in.

The Country Director, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Mrs Dede Ekoue who led the delegation, earlier informed NITDA’s Management team that the visit was to strengthen the existing partnership and thank the Agency for its support at different times it was sought after, particularly for the Multi-stakeholder Dialogue on ICT4D for smallholder farmers that was held in May, 2023.

Mrs Ekoue went on to explain that the Dialogue helped the team undertake several activities, including capacity building, exchange of visits, among others.

“Now, we are going to have another policy dialogue to strengthen collaborations among all the institutions involved in extending all the digital solutions to smallholder farmers”.

“It is a very important meeting that demonstrates once again the leadership of NITDA in scaling up ICT4D and we are very pleased with to be having this discussion because it will aid us to straighten out some pillars and strategies for the benefit of smallholder farmers in Nigeria”, Ekoue stressed.

She expressed gratitude for NITDA DG’s assurances in granting IFAD’s collaboration requests which she mentioned would assist in leveraging community of actors, as NITDA is not only supporting the course but also would mobilise the support of other key stakeholders, invariably, enabling smallholder farmers access digital solutions across board.

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TECH DIGEST – Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says Nigeria is prioritizing innovation and technology investments in agriculture in order to transform the sector by attracting young people and also scaling up productivity.

The event was organised by the African Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), in partnership with the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and the CGIAR System Organisation.

The theme of the dialogue is “Feeding Africa: leadership to scale up successful innovations”.

Osinbajo listed three initiatives –the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP), the National Livestock Transformation Plan and the Green Imperative Project– as programmes geared toward agricultural transformation.

“At the heart of Nigeria’s post COVID-19 recovery plan, or what we describe as ESP is Agriculture for Food and Jobs Plan (AFJP).

“Here we seek to leverage suitable technologies to build a resilient food system for Nigeria especially in the light of the economic, health and food supply chain devastations caused by the pandemic.

“Implementation is well underway and we have quite a few impressive results already.

“During the COVID lockdowns, we trained and deployed over 34,000 young graduates all over the country, covering over 8,000 local government wards in 774 Local Government Areas.

“Each of these young men and women had a locally developed app on smartphones and electronic tablets to digitally register farmers and map out their farm GIS coordinates.

“So, we have registered and mapped about six million small-holder farmers to their farmlands and we are also currently collecting 200,000 composite soil samples from these farms to be analysed in 22 local soil laboratories to guide local fertiliser blending.”

He said that on the back of the farmer-farm database developed, the government was creating a digital Agriculture Exchange Programme (AgExchange), working with the Alliance Rabobank and MasterCard in collaboration with some local FinTech companies.

According to him, the FinTech companies (FarmCrowdy, Infinera, CropIT) are run by young Nigerians.

“The AgExchange will be an ecosystem or one-stop-shop for providing a range of services and products to small-holder farmers such as real-time e-subsidies, credit-connect by providing credit score of farmers on the platform.

“And also linking them to financiers, insurance services, and market place services for connecting producers, aggregators and off-takers based on competitive market prices.

“ Input suppliers, weather, pests, and disease indexing services will be provided on the exchange as well; the budget for the Agriculture for Food and Jobs Plan AFJP is 1.5 billion dollars.”

On the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP), Osinbajo said that the focus was on transiting gradually from nomadic system of cattle production to the more sedentary method of ranching.

The vice president said that it would involve training pastoralists in new ways of producing and rearing cattle sustainably.

He said it would address the challenges of resource-based violent conflicts between crop farmers and cattle herders, and the generally low milk and beef productivity of indigenous cattle breeds.

“An indigenous technology company has developed a microchip for tracking the cattle and we are working on a pilot project with one of our development partners – the Netherlands government.

“All the energy on the ranches will be from biogas from cattle dung and solar power.

“The ranch will be an integration of crops, pasture, and trees; the crops for the need of the pastoral household, the trees to fight desertification and enhance carbon sequestration rather than emission.

“Funding for this is from budgets of the Federal and State governments and bilateral support from development partners such as the Netherlands. The initial sum is in the order of 280 million dollars,” he said.

Besides Osinbajo, other African leaders who spoke at the event included President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi, President of Senegal, Macky Sall and President of Mali, Bah N’Daw.

More so, President of Burkina Faso, Christian Kaboré, Prime Minister of Sudan, Dr Abdalla Hamdok, President, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Sahle-Work Zewde and Prime Minister of Sudan, Dr Abdalla Hamdok.

President of the African Development Bank, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, former UK Prime Minister, and Executive Chairman of the Institute for Global Change, Mr Tony Blair, and President, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) were among the speakers.

Gilbert Houngbo and the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on 2021 Food Systems Summit, Ms Agnes Kalibata, also spoke at the event.

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