Food Security: NITDA, USAID to collaborate on digital farming, nutrition sufficiency in Nigeria

 

*Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE, Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, discloses the agency introduces several initiatives to build ‘an agriculture strategy’ with emerging techs towards making the sector a more attractive business to the younger generation

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

With over 70 million arable land enough to feed not just Nigeria but Africa as a whole, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE, Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has disclosed the agency is willing to partner with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and relevant stakeholders to tackle food insecurity in Nigeria.

ConsumerConnect reports Inuwa stated this while receiving representatives from USAID, led by Josh Woodard Senior Digital Advisor Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security, at the agency’s Corporate Headquarters, in Abuja, FCT.

NITDA noted the purpose of the USAID team’s visit was to have a rapid landscape assessment of digital agriculture in Nigeria and partner with the Information Technology (IT) sector regulatory agency in the country.

NITDA initiatives to boost agricultural production for food security, by Inuwa

The Director-General of NITDA stated: “One of President Bola Tinubu’s areas of focus is boosting agriculture to achieve food security; and at NITDA, we were set up to develop the National IT Policy, and IT policy is not just about developing IT but developing IT to boost productivity across all critical sectors including agriculture.

“That is why we do a lot of initiatives in trying to see how we can build an agriculture Strategy with IT in mind and make it a more attractive business to the younger generation.”

He equally revealed that NITDA had identified six emerging technologies, that would aid in achieving food security in Nigeria.

“We have an  Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy co-creation workshop going on, which started on Monday, where we are working with the ecosystem to develop a strategy on how to use AI in agriculture, health, education, and so on.

“We are working on how to use the Internet of Things, (IoT) in agriculture for crop monitoring, soil monitoring, precision irrigation, climate monitoring livestock monitoring, and so on,” Inuwa stated.

The NITDA Chief Executive further said: “We are working using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, (UAVs) to facilitate pest detection, water control, yield assessment, and so on.

“We are working on using Blockchain for the traceability of farm produce from farm to store, record keeping, quality assurance, and so on.”

He noted: “We are working on using Robotics to enhance productivity in agriculture in terms of automation of physical farm processing like weeding, harvesting, tractors, and many more.”

“For additive manufacturing, we are working on using it to upscale our manufacturing industry in the Agricultural sector for the production of crop and soil monitoring devices, customised equipment, and many more.”

On NITDA’s commitment to ensuring that Nigeria develops its digital offering in-country, Inuwa as well explained the Nigeria Startup Portal was launched during the week with over 12,000 startups registered so far.

According to him, they would be labelled after which they could have access to incentives.

USAID set to work with stakeholders for food security in Nigeria: Woodard

Earlier Josh Woodard of USAID had said that the meeting with the NITDA team was to enable USAID to have first-hand information on what Nigeria is doing in digital farming to see how to enhance the integration of digital technology in agriculture.

Woodard revealed that USAID recently launched the Global Food Security Strategy for Nigeria (2024 -2029) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The USAID top official noted: “We want to work with all stakeholders to ensure food security in Nigeria.”

The meeting discussed the National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA) in relation to the success stories the initiative has recorded, the expansion strategy it is adopting, and call on the USAID to be part of the initiatives, NITDA stated.

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