Posted on November, 18, 2021 at 09:43 am
In the last five years, public and private firms have dedicated resources to building infrastructure to digital agriculture. One of the significant outcomes is the creation of digital data-driven platforms that are impacting on farmers’ livelihoods, DANIEL ESSIET reports.
LOT of initiatives and startups have emerged across the country in the last five years. They are leveraging digital tools and technologies to increase farmers’ productivity and incomes, as well as strengthen food security.
One of them is the FarmCrowdy, Nigeria’s first digital agriculture platform that connects small-scale farmers with sponsors who invest in the farm cycle. Its Chairman, Onyeka Akumah, is among entrepreneurs deploying data-driven platforms to improve market access, introduce technologies, and link investors to farmers.
Using a data-driven platform, FarmCrowdy has been able to bridge a the financing gap by providing farmers access to finance and premium markets.
The platform integrates with banks, monitor investments and farm activities through to loan repayment.
With increased access to finance, the company has expanded farmers’ access to credit, input, expertise, and markets for increased food security, employment, and income generation. On the platform is a data of participating farmers.
The firm has established a marketplace for farm produce. This has helped to increase the supply of healthy produce.
To guarantee continuous and systematic data collection, training is ongoing; to help analytics hands become familiar with the unified agricultural monitoring platform.
They are not alone. A crowd farming platform, Thrive Agric has launched a data driven project.
The focus is to increase the production of three staple crops – rice, maize and soybean – involving women and youths in the industry.
The one-year project is to support 50,000 smallholder farmers interested in increasing their crop yields and incomes.
Thrive Agric is committing $10 million to fund the project and the United States Agency for International Development( USAID)-funded West Africa Trade & Investment Hub is backing the effort with a $1.75 million co-investment grant.
The resources that farmers will access include agronomy advisory services, pre-and post-harvest storage and logistics support, links to credit and agriculture insurance products and the company’s current and future mobile apps. Thrive Agric developed mobile apps to support smallholder farmers across Nigeria and Africa at large. Through its Tradr mobile app, Thrive gives farmers direct access to seed and other input providers, farm machinery service providers and off-takers within their locations. Also, its Tmoni mobile app provides customers with a digital wallet on their phone, which they can use to send, receive, save and borrow money.
To boost agriculture, the Lagos Government is working to increase the capacity of the sector with investments for mega food projects. Consequently, the sector is expected to gain better momentum due to increased investment in agricultural infrastructure such as irrigation facilities, warehousing and cold storage.
Above all, the Commissioner for Agriculture, Ms Ruth Abisoye Olusanya said the emphasis would be on data-driven agriculture using innovative technology to make the business profitable for farmers.
To this end, the government is making efforts to ensure access to quality o agricultural machinery that would impact positively on the productivity and output of the sector.
According to her, a data-driven infrastructure would enhance the growth of the sector.
In Nigeria, data agriculture is a high impact industry and private players are sensing the opportunity and want to be a large part of it. Afex Investment Limited has been making use of digital technology for generating data from farmers.
The Managing Director, Afex Investment Limited, Samira Ade-Adebiyi, said the organisation has brought about a positive change in the farming sector by harnessing cutting-edge technologies such as data and monitoring.
With the effective implementation of technology, she said, Afex Investment Limited has been able to revolutionise farming by incorporating technology into daily field operations.
She said the company helps farmers and agro producers with data providing real-time actionable insights on crops.
She noted, however that it was still challenging deploying technology in the rural areas because of the poor level of digital connectivity.
For Chief Executive Officer, Agricorp International Development Limited, Kenneth Obiajulu, there was the need to further strengthen human capital of the agricultural innovation ecosystem.
He stressed further that technology alone would not improve farmers’ livelihoods.
Commonwealth Farmers, a United Kingdom-based data management firm is partnering the Southwest Farmers Association of Nigeria (SWEFAN), led by Dr Tai Oyekan to provide digital and financial support for farmers.
Source: The Nation