TECH DIGEST – Internet of Things (IoT) and smart agriculture should immediately be made a national program in Nigeria and which should be backed up with appropriate policies, the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), has recommended to stakeholders in the agricultural sector.
NCS believes that IoT and Smart Agriculture possess the potential to address many of the nation’s security challenges, as contained in a communiqué issued at the end of its Webinar titled: “Building Capacities for Smart Agriculture in Nigeria,” and it took place on the 17th of February, 2021.

Three papers were presented by experts during the Plenary Session 1 while a 12-man panellist did justice to the theme during the discussion forum (Plenary Session 2).

The communiqué signed by the Executive Secretary of NCS, Engineer Iyiola Ayoola, was compiled from some of the questions, proposals and assertions made during the webinar, TechEconomy.ng can report.

The meeting agreed that implementing and adopting smart agriculture will improve productivity and profitability in Low- and Medium-Income Countries (LMIC).

“The potentials are huge as seen from the success stories from developed economies, hence there is need for more conceited efforts towards achieving this feat.

“The meeting posited that IoT and smart agriculture should immediately be made a national program in Nigeria and which should be backed up with appropriate policies especially because of its potential to address many of the nation’s security challenges”, NCS said.

The Meeting recalls that smart agriculture requires heavy initial investments, recurring maintenance cost, strong Internet connectivity, as well as high cost of technology devices such as precision sensors, drones, gateways, bots, etc.

However, participants expressed concerns about how these barriers to successful implementation and adoption of smart agriculture can be resolved and call on the Government to facilitate the integration of IoT and smart agriculture in Nigeria particularly due to the high number of small holder farmers in the Country.

At the meeting, it was agreed that one of the factors for the successful implementation cases in India is the enhanced mobile network connectivity with reduced cost.

The Federal Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy (FMCDE) was tasked to immediately ensure that Nigerians have regular access to cheap, fast, and strong Internet connection as part of the capacities for smart agriculture in Nigeria.

NIGCOMSAT posits that with the satellite all the smart agriculture technologies can be implemented even in the rural areas.

“NIGCOMSAT and its channel partners can provide broadband connectivity through VSATs and TV White Spaces (TVWS) for individual farmers or farmers cooperatives in rural areas.

“Most farmers are not literate and may not have enough financial resources to adopt IoT and smart agriculture.

“The Government should implement policies that will encourage, motivate and mobilize small and medium holder farmers to adopt the practice of smart agriculture”, Ayoola said.

Meanwhile, the Communiqué recognizes the need to for a paradigm shift in the way knowledge is handled as far as agriculture is concerned.

“There is a huge gap between the farmers, commodity brokers, academia, and other stakeholders in the agro industry, etc. We must bridge this gap and leverage on the knowledge technology and entrepreneurship in Agriculture?”

The meeting was particularly concerned with the literacy level of farmers. There is need for literacy education that is targeted at the farmers to enable them to key into the smart agriculture scheme.

“Extension and rural agriculture development officers should be retrained with appropriate skills and tools to disseminate smart agriculture-based knowledge to farmers.

“The meeting highlights the need to embrace hydroponics farming to grow animal feeds which will create decent jobs, improve the economy and food security as well as tackle the national security menace created by the farmers/herders’ clashes” , the communiqué reads.

The Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC), informed the meeting of the recent purchase of drones which are ready for deployment for aerial mapping and vegetation survey of farmlands. The agencies look forward to collaborators that are interested in research or projects involving drones.

National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) in its move to turn the agriculture sector around, came up with the National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA) programme to provide farmers with technology to showcase their farm produce in the digital world market, more effort is required in this direction.

“There is need for a Government formulated policy on data exchanges and ownership since smart agriculture involves a lot of data collection”.

The meeting was concerned with the arrangement in place as collaboration between industries and Universities towards taking agriculture to greater heights? Hence, Universities of Agricultures in Nigeria were challenged to assist the Nation by taking the lead and setting the pace for adoption of smart agriculture in Nigeria especially with regards to genetics and improved crop seedlings.

The meeting was also concerned with the low number of applicants into undergraduate agricultural programmes. The Universities, Governments and other stakeholders are to device frameworks and incentives that will encourage the youths and women to engage in agriculture, especially smart agriculture.

The Ivory Towers were also encouraged to move from theory to applied/practical/entrepreneurial based teaching models especially in agriculture because the present Universities curriculum does not give room for smart farming.

Individuals, Organizations and Government agencies such as the Federal Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy (FMCDE), Federal Ministry of Agriculture (FMOA), NITDA, NAIC, NIGCOMSAT, Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, Landmark University Omu-Aran, IoT Africa Network Ltd and Secure Agric Ltd, that were part of this webinar, should collaborate and initiate projects on smart agriculture should could be used as pilot schemes.

The meeting recommended that relevant stakeholders within the smart agriculture industry should adopt IoT based technologies like Sigfox, Agrikoin, etc. and collaborate with the indigenous Nigerian Companies championing them.

The Communiqué further calls on organizations like Microsoft and others with products in the IoT, Smart Agriculture and Data analytics domain for flexible price regime that are region specific to support countries like Nigeria with several smaller holder farmers.

On the international level, the Communiqué: calls on developed Countries in Europe, US, and Australia, etc to partner with Nigeria for industrial mentorship programs for technology and knowledge transfer.

The webinar was aimed at providing essential technical skills and techniques required for the adoption of smart agriculture in Nigeria.

It provided a comprehensive examination of the processes of precision agriculture, from the preparation stage through to the farming and post farming stages with the following specific topics:

Principles and practices of precision agriculture;
IoT-based Smart Agriculture for Nation’s Economic Advancement;
End-to-end technology-based agricultural production management;
Spectral sensing of crops from space air and ground;
Machine learning in Agriculture: Techniques and Applications.

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TECH DIGEST – The National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, has launched one-week training for 140 farmers in Gombe state on digital farming, under the National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture, NAVSA, empowerment programme.

Inaugurating the training in Gombe, on Thursday, the Minister for Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali-Pantami said the 140 participants who were drawn from across the state, would each be empowered with a Smart device, fertilizer, pesticides, among other items, and N100,000, at the end of the training.

The minister added that developed countries, and even some African countries like Ghana and Kenya, had been practicing digital Agriculture successfully, and that digitalization had proven its impact on the economy and society, by reducing unemployment and improving the quality of life.

“The ICT sector is a key enabler of every sector, it is making other sectors more productive because there were so many model ICT platforms being used to promote Agriculture”, he said.

He said a similar training was held in Ekiti and Jigawa states, and the Federal Government had provided all the facilities required for the training and they will continue the training in other places to ensure a significant number of people benefitted.

According to him, the requirements to succeed in the fourth industrial Revolution necessitated digitalization being at the core of any nation’s development and strategy.

In his address of welcome, Dr Kashifu Abdullahi, Director General of NITDA, said leveraging on digital technology and innovations will attract the youth into Agriculture and create digital business models across the value chains.

Also, the programme would facilitate millions of jobs, increase productivity, as well as the contribution of Agriculture to GDP, which, in turn would make Nigeria a leading nation in food security and an exporter of standard Agricultural produce to the world.

He said the programme was initiated to systematically adopt farmers across the country, by equipping them with digital skills that would make Nigeria leading nation in Smart Agriculture.

“‘The goal is to provide Nigerian farmers with the means to showcase their farm produce in the digital world market”, he said.

In his goodwill message, Prof. Aliyu El-Nafaty, Vice-Chancellor, Gombe State University, GSU, commended NITDA for the wonderful initiative, while calling on the agency to extend the gesture to members of the communities around the University.

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TECH DIGEST – The integration of digital technology in agricultural value chain has been identified as a major stimulus that would help the county combat the challenges of hunger that may arise due to the growing world population which is projected to rise to 10 billion people by 2050.

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami stated this Tuesday in Gombe, while delivering his keynote address at the opening ceremony of the training programme organized to absorbed another 140 youthful farmers into the National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture, (NAVSA.)

NAVSA is an ecosystem-driven digital platform created for the transformation of the agricultural sector in Nigeria.
It is designed to help farmers and other agricultural ecosystem players navigate their journey across the agriculture value chain.

The minister, who explained that the imminent increase of about 2.5 billion in the world population would bring the challenge of hunger, added that “any nation that fails to strategize on how to take care of itself agriculturally, will definitely face a very huge challenge because no country exports until it is satisfied.

“In less than 30 years, the world population will increase by 2.5 billion which is unprecedented and this increase will come with so many challenges and the number one challenge is going to be hunger, especially in the developing nations that are still lagging behind when it comes to policies and strategies.

Citing example of how Netherlands became second exporter of agricultural produce in the world with its relatively small population and land mass, Pantami noted that the adoption of digitization in farming would surely bring about transformation into the sector.

“The model of agriculture being practiced in Netherlands reduces the consumption of water by 90 percent, and it increases the quality of production by minimum of 500 percent. It also reduces the use of insecticide by minimum of 99 percent because of the way they deployed modern technology in agriculture.

He added that “climate change and population explosion remain the two most dangerous challenges confronting agriculture and the earlier we use technology to drive the sector the better for us.”

He said, as part of the federal government policy on the digital economy, which the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy came up with the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy and NITDA has been directed to champion this program on Smart Agriculture in Nigeria.
Pantami explained that under the federal government policy on digital economy, his ministry formulated the National Digital Economy and Strategy and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) was directed to champion the programme on Smart Agriculture in Nigeria.

The minister, who described as unprecedented, the consistency in coming up with policies geared towards promoting digitization in the country, noted that the policies were yielding tremendous result.

“This program is one of the policies given to the parastatals to implement. Other parastatals will join in the training. Nigeria Communication Commission may probably join in 2021. They will start organising similar training because we have so many models to deploy in agriculture.

“So we do hope our teeming youths will grasp the opportunities to become entrepreneurs at the end of the training and support the economy by creating more jobs for our citizens,’’ said Pantami.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Director-General, National of NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa maintained that the program is part of the Agency’s implementation of the national digital economy policy to digitalize Nigeria.

He stated further that the innovative initiative is meant to transform agriculture business in Nigeria by making it attractive investment for the youth, boost food production as well as reduce wastage in the sector.

“Looking at what is happening globally and how digital technology is changing the way we live, the way we work and the way we do business, we see it as a source of inspiration to look at how we can adapt and adopt these technologies in agriculture because most of us in Nigeria take agriculture as our source of income and it contribute more than any other sector to our Gross Domestic Product, GDP,” he said.
Kashifu said the adoption of digital technology in agriculture and the NAVSA initiative would solve the problem of wastage associated with the sector due to poor knowledge of harvesting techniques, poor post-harvest management and lack of suitable infrastructure and market platform to sell agricultural produce.

“This initiative would provide a platform for you to share knowledge among yourselves and other stakeholders. In post-harvest management, the emerging technology will help you in preserving the produce and we would create a market platform for you because the world is moving into a platform business.

“This national platform will help you to get access to all stakeholders in agriculture value chain in the country and it can provide you link to the off takers that would buy your produce,” he added.

The beneficiaries expressed appreciation to the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and NITDA for the opportunities the NAVSA would avail them. They promised that they would ensure they translate the program to fulfill the aspiration of the Agency.
Dignitaries at the event included the NITDA Board Chairman, Dr. Abubakar Saidi; the Vice Chancellor, Gombe State University, Prof. Aliu Usman El-Nafati; Managing Director Galaxy Backbone, Prof. M.B Abubakar, among others.

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TECH DIGEST – The National Information and Technology Development Agency (NITDA) under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital economy and in collaboration with the Jigawa state government has commenced a ten-day empowerment programme for 140 farmers on smart Agriculture in Jigawa state.

The empowerment programme which cuts across the 27 local governments in the state was flagged off on Monday the 18th of January 2021 at the Manpower Development Institute (MDI) in Dutse and is scheduled to come to a close on the 27th of January, 2021. The beneficiaries of the programme stand to be empowered with smart devices, One Hundred Thousand Naira each, digital agripreneurship, digital platform (NAVSA mobile app), farm inputs among others, in a bid to improve Agriculture in the state.

Speaking at the flag off of the first innovation summit on ecosystem in Dutse, the Honorable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Dr Isah Ali Ibrahim Pantami said, by using Digital Innovation so many challenges facing the country such as, unemployment will be solved as he also assured that the Federal government would give all necessary supports to Jigawa State in order to successfully achieve these goals.

Offering his remarks, the Director General, National Information Technology and Development Agency, Malam Kashifu Inuwa said, there are a lot of ways to create a viable innovative Ecosystem for Economic development and job opportunities, noting that Jigawa has a lot of potentials to offer in agriculture as the largest producer of many agricultural produce in the country. He added that if Jigawa State can harness its potentials, the State stands a high chance of tapping from digital economy through Agriculture than what Nigeria made and is making from the oil and gas sector.

The DG reiterated that, Innovation is part of the efforts put in place by President Muhammadu Buhari’s led administration in ensuring the diversification of the Nigerian economy.

In his remark, the Jigawa State Governor, Muhammed Badaru Abubakar said, his government is entirely focused on agricultural activities, while he prayed the summit brings solutions in improving modern farming in the State through critical thinking. The Governor added that, it is only through critical thinking that the minds of Nigerian youths can be opened, so that they can look around their environment and see the opportunities around them that they can turn into business and create jobs, adding that the more problems are being solved, the more income can be generated.

“We have to look at the areas where we have competitiveness and see how best we can make our economy work through those areas”, said Badaru.

Like I have always said, we can achieve this largely in Agriculture. We have vast land and water for irrigation in Jigawa. We will continue to focus on how to develop Agriculture and its value chain.

“I want to challenge this Summit to see how best we can improve in what we are doing and how best we can create jobs around the value chains in Nigeria digitally”, said Badaru.

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