By Lukman Lamid
Today marks the beginning of a transformation in the agriculture sector to enable the sector to contribute effectively to the digital economy of Nigeria and create jobs for the teeming youths.
What we did is to rethink agriculture differently, by creating a digital platform that will connect the Agric ecosystem and enable the possibility of new business models by the private sector which will, in turn, generate new products and services and create value across the Agric value chain.
This is to support the Honourable Minister’s digital economy focus especially in a critical sector of the economy as Agriculture in order to bring into reality the economic diversification of the Mr. President and ensure attainment of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 which is to end hunger and achieve food security by 2030.
NITDA Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA) is a project conceived to create about 6 Million jobs in the next 5 to 10 years through our technology Platform.
The platform is to connect all the Agric ecosystem members comprised of farmers, government agencies, Agric. Experts, the banks and micro-lenders, extension services, hardware solution providers, software developers, customers, marketplace, among others across the Agric value chain.
The idea is to support 25 graduates in each of the 774 LGAs on modern Agric methods, give them the resources and the right technology to enable them to manage their farms from planting to harvesting and marketing.
This pilot phase is a proof of concept which had witnessed selection, training and support of 15 graduates in Gombe State on modern farming methods in collaboration with National Agriculture Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS).
We have developed a digital platform in which its mobile app components will be launched today by the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami and my DG, Mr Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi. The Platform will continue to serve NITDA supported farmers, any other farmers and all the ecosystem members when it is fully ready.
Ability to get information to monitor farms in real-time and connect with resources to manage farm effectively will improve crop yield, quality of farm produce per block of land and profit for these farmers.
In the future, we would deploy and integrate smart technologies such as IoT on the platform to improve the accuracy and the processes of getting information in real-time, integrate with GIS technologies, Artificial Intelligence, Big data analytics among other emerging technologies to add more value to the platform.
I will like to note that this innovation is a product of research paper “Towards Diversification of Nigeria Economy through Smart Agriculture” published by the Hon. Minister in June 2017 in International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technology Research.
This gentleman is an uncommon leader, a mentor, innovator, agent of change and name it- you have to give it to him. We are proud of you Honorable Minister sir.
I want to appreciate my DG, a silent achiever who has demonstrated professionalism and has been consistent with Pantami’s ideal. If not for his support, this would have not been possible. Thank you, sir.
In view of this, I will have the honour to present the 15 farmers to the Hon. Minister and the DG for the presentation of the support fund and tablet.
Thank you and God bless.
– Lamid, a desk officer speaking at the recently concluded eNigeria conference (Dinner and Awards Night)