Malam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE, Director-General of NITDA (l) with Mohammed Abu Ibrahim, Executive Secretary of NADF, Signing the MoU at the Agency’s Headquarters, in Abuja, FCT Photo: NITDA
*Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE, Director-General of Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency, explains the benefits the agency’s signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Agriculture Development Fund is aimed at boosting productivity in agriculture, wealth creation, and ensuring food security in the country
Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect
In a bid to boost crop yields and promote wealth creation in the agricultural sector of the economy, the Nigerian Government has restated its commitment to ensuring food security through the infusion of emerging technologies.
The government’s move has necessitated the collaboration between the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the National Agriculture Development Fund (NADF) to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), aiming to boost productivity in agriculture.
Farmers harvesting farm produce in Nigeria
ConsumerConnect reports Malam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE, Director-General of NITDA, disclosed this development Thursday, October 10, 2024, while receiving Muhammed Abu, Executive Secretary of NADF, and his team for the signing of the MoU, at the NITDA Corporate Headquarters, in Abuja, FCT.
Inuwa said: “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, is big and loud on boosting agriculture to ensure food security; and today you cannot talk about boosting agriculture without talking about digital technology.
“And that is the reason we are here to sign an MoU to see how we can infuse emerging technologies into Agriculture, so we can boost productivity in Agriculture.”
The Director-General of NITDA also stated: “Our Minister is quite interested in this as he personally has his own farm where he is doing all these.
“He started the conversation with you, and our teams worked to draft the MoU, both legal teams reviewed the document, and today, we are here to sign the MoU for immediate implementation.”
NITDA’s digital initiatives in agricultural sector, by Inuwa
The Director-General of NITDA noted: “We have started our initiatives around agriculture like the National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA), we have a demo farm here in Abuja, and we have been partnering with Universities across the country doing research and Startups to develop technologies and do proof of concepts with the technologies on farmlands. said Inuwa.
“This year, we gave grants to Startups who have ideas on how to use emerging technologies to boost agriculture.
“And we are working with some of them in existing farms across the country to demonstrate how technology can boost productivity in that space.”
Also speaking at the MoU signing in Abuja, Mohammed Abu Ibrahim, Executive Secretary of NADF, noted that the nexus between agriculture and technology could not be over emphasised.
Ibrahim stated the agricultural sector of the Nigerian economy is facing some temporary challenges, such as issues of funding, climate change, insecurity, and several others.
He also said: “We have seen interesting technological patterns which have given a lot of impact and optimisation in our sector, like Artificial Intelligence (AI), WAV, Internet of Things (IoT), and many more.
“We feel like without optimising agriculture and looking at it from this evidence-based perspective as a fund, we may not achieve much.”
The Executive Secretary of NADF stated: “There is no denying the fact that empirical evidence, especially data backed evidence, would help us to allocate our limited resources better.
“So, in our stride to see that we are doing a lot more with less we have decided to come in and especially be part of monitoring and evaluation which will eventually direct us towards achieving that mantra of ‘doing more with less’ and that is why we are here.”
Fund is hopeful that this will be the first of many more of such collaborations, Ibrahim added.
