Stakeholders at the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) workshop have reiterated the importance of leveraging technology to achieve the desired growth in the agricultural sector.
The stakeholders spoke at the NBCC’s workshop with the theme : “Leveraging technology and digital transformation in agriculture,” on Thursday in Lagos.
They deliberated on the adoption of technological innovations to boost productivity.
In his keynote address, Dr Ernest Umakhihe, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), said that government had put in place innovative policies to boost the sector in the next five year.
Umakhihe represented by Mr Ibrahim Bello, Director of Planning and Policy Co-ordination, said that government would continue to support the stakeholders in the sector.
“The Federal Government is encouraging and also putting efforts in enhancing the agriculture based policies and programmes such as the National Agricultural Technology Innovation Plan (NATIP).
“NATIP is a policy that is set to run from 2022 to 2027 and was recently approved by the Federal Executive Council to facilitate growth in the agriculture sector.
“The policy will facilitate and encourage agricultural businesses, technology development and mechanisations among others. The whole aim is to have good agricultural outputs while encouraging job creation for youths.
“NATIP is necessary for leveraging technology and digital transformation in agriculture.
“The policy is set up to guide the implementation of programmes and projects in promoting a cluster model for undertaking agribusiness investments in commodity value-chain,” he said.
Umakhihe said that government was projecting the recapitalisation of the Bank of Agriculture and Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation with relevant authorities.
“NATIP aims to establish special agriculture processing zones in each geopolitical zone in the country,” he said.
On his part, Dr Sola Obabori, Chairman, Agric. and Export Trade Group of NBCC, said sensitising local farmers on the adoption of technological innovation for increased productivity was necessary.
“To leverage technology and digital transformation in agriculture, we must embark on adequate sensitisation of local farmers at the grassroots.
“Some of the programmes we organise is to sensitise local farmers on the need for technology, we also need to go down to the grassroots and organise programmes where we can connect to them.
“Government have a role to play, they have the database of all these farmers, we should bring them together to ensure that we can showcase these technological agriculture innovations.
“FMARD has a lot of role to play because they have a lot of database of the farmers. We can accompany them to classroom and educate them, go to the farm and demonstrate what we are talking about,” Obabori said.
An agriculture expert with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Success Manager, Cropnuts AgriServe Ltd., (IITA-BIP), Mr Niels Van Den Bosch, said integrating research and development from his institute would improve farmers knowledge.
“We are commercialising IITA through ground breaking research for development bindings to the public and private sector.
“And in doing so, Business Incubation Platform (BIP), tries to establish full scale production facilities intended for adoption and replication by the private sector.
“We provide expertise and training in commercial agriculture and farm management for local farmers.
“So, we do not only do research, we now do not only commercialise research innovations from IITA, but we also partner with other external sectors,” he said.
Also, Mr Ebikekeme Ere, the Chief Executive Officer, Ero Aeronautical Ltd., said there was need the to apply modern technology to boost agricultural productivity to forestall food insecurity in future due to continuous population growth.
Ere said the use of drones technology for agricultural activities can help boost the sector’s productivity.
According to him, “A lot of drones are all over the place. How come nobody is using these drones for agriculture?
There is a potential for a 50 to 60 per cent crop yield per acre with appropriate use of technology in agriculture, but nobody is doing anything about it,” Ere said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop had in attendance government officials and stakeholders across the agriculture sector.
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