FarmKonnect Agribusiness Nigeria, an electronic centre being established in the country to boost data based agriculture in Africa, has urged policy makers and other stakeholders in the sector to adopt electronic data for the development of agriculture in a ploy to overcome the palpable fear of food insecurity in Nigeria and the entire continent.
The company made the call in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital on Friday during a media briefing organised to announce the entry of its agricultural electronic extension services centre in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
The Chief Operating Officer of the company, Mr Azees Oluwole, who expressed concern on the primitive approach to farming in Africa, said there must be a progressive departure from the age long primitive system of agriculture as the method is unsustainable.
He noted that with the declaration by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation that by the year 2050, the world will have about 9.1 billion people to feed, there is need for Africa to be part of efforts to address the food requirement to cater for the projected population.
Oluwole said, “Africa is particularly threatened by its exponential population growth compared to its food production capacity. For Africa to reduce the challenge of poverty and the population of the malnourished, there should be deliberate effort to increase food production significantly.
“Africa is home to over 60 per cent of the world’s arable land yet it is the most malnourished continent in the world. With a population growth rate of 2.7 per cent every year, the sub-Saharan African population is projected to hit 2.5 billion by 2050 from the current figure of 1.25 billion. Unless stakeholders begin to take concerted efforts to salvage the problem, the future of Africa is threatened with severe food crisis, hunger, malnutrition,unemployment and poverty.
“No doubt, the ability of the people to have access to affordable nutritious food is an indication of economic prosperity for a nation. However, achieving food security in a sustainable way requires incremental innovations and a strong political will to create enabling environment for entrepreneurship to thrive .One direction that farmers and agricultural experts must be encouraged to explore to reach wider possibilities in the food supply chain is the big data ecosystem.
“The ongoing data explosion has disrupted the way we normally see or do things. In the last few years, there has been evidences of a new awakening in the ways we grow crops, rare animals and produce foods due to the growing capacity of stakeholders across the different agricultural value chain to leverage data for smart-farming. Major developments in the industry have been recorded with the application of the big data and digital technologies.
“Through this innovation, agricultural success stories no longer depend on having favorable natural forces like rainfall etc. The integration of cloud computing and big data for smart farming has ensured a wider repository of knowledge that contains various data points including weather, irrigation practices, plants nutrient requirements, pesticide application and several other farming techniques which enable farmers to make informed decisions and outsmart nature.”
