The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mal. Kashifu Inuwa has again advocated for the adoption of digital agriculture in order to wholly diversify the Nigerian economy, which is largely dependent on oil.
Mal. Inuwa, who made the advocacy at the Review Workshop on National Digital Agriculture Strategy (NDAS) held virtually, noted that building a vibrant Digital Agriculture sector that leverages on digital technologies and innovations has become imperative as the population of Nigeria continues to grow with large demographic of young adult.
Represented by the Director eGovernment Development and Regulation, Dr Vincent Olatunji, Inuwa also disclosed that NITDA under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) has developed the Nigeria Digital Agriculture Strategy (NDAS) to build a vibrant digital agriculture sector that leverages digital technologies and innovations.
He believes that leveraging digital technologies and innovations will attract youthful population into agricultural sector, create new digital business models across the agriculture value chain, enable millions of jobs increase productivity and increase the contribution of sector to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“Digital agriculture will make Nigeria a leading country in food security and exporter of standard agricultural products to the rest of the world,” he argued.
The government being led by President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR has identified agriculture as a key frontier in addressing the economic and unemployment challenges in the country and has promised to leverage it to take 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by 2030.
Meanwhile, one of the facilitators at the workshop Mr. Lukman Lamid of the NITDA’s eGovernment Department and Regulations explained that eight complementary initiatives have been designed for NDAS among which are; organise Agtech Entrepreneual training programs for startups, establishing Digital Agriculture Strategy and Advisory Forum, establishing and promoting Agtech Career Initiative.
Other includes establishing rural digital literacy initiative in Agriculture, establish agricultural digital innovation hubs for research and innovations, build consortium on ICT for climate-smart agriculture platforms and gender inclusion in digital agriculture
Speaking further, Mr. Lamid said a platform for the Nigeria Digital Agriculture Community group will be created to include NITDA, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, Related Federal Public Institutions, State Governments and Farmers.