NITDA adopts 75 UI students for smart farmers project

INSPIRED by the success stories emanating from the implementation of the National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA) and its prospect to encourage youths to embrace agriculture leveraging digital technologies, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) on Friday, at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, concluded a five-day intensive training which culminated in the adoption of 75 smart farmers into the NAVSA platform.

The programme, one of whose goals is to build a sustainable digital platform that provides varieties of information for more than half of agriculture ecosystem players in Nigeria to promote a highly-productive agribusiness economy, has so far adopted almost 992 smart farmers and created thousands of direct and indirect jobs for Nigerians.

At the closing ceremony of the training on Friday, where digital tools and seed funding were presented to the beneficiaries, the NITDA Director General, Kashifu Inuwa, reiterated that the programme was designed to help the farmers raise their efficiency, effectiveness and profitability of their farm businesses through the adoption of digital technologies.

Giving an overview of the programme, Inuwa, who was represented by the team lead and Assistant Director, Digital Economy Development Department, Dr Ayodele Bakare, disclosed that the programme was designed in two folds: to build the digital and literacy skills of the beneficiaries and to demonstrate to them how feasible is to run a smart farm.

He said the programme was initiated by NITDA to demonstrate that Information Technology (IT) is an enabler of all other sectors of the economy and if properly deployed and adopted by farmers, it would aid food production and security in the country.

The NITDA DG added that the essence of the training was for the beneficiaries to be able to manage their smart farms and become self-reliant.

While advising the beneficiaries to practise what they have learnt throughout the period of the training and build on it, he assured them that NITDA would continue to provide the necessary support should the need arise.

“What we have done here is to wet your appetite and inspire you to optimize it beyond what NITDA has done for you. We expect you to maximize your businesses models by pulling resources together,” he said.

Inuwa, however, called on the university management to help the beneficiaries in monitoring and supervising the farms in order to ensure that they are self-sustaining.

“We sincerely thank the Vice Chancellor, the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and the entire staff for unfettered support to make this programme a reality and we believe that it will spur you to expand the scope far above what NITDA has donated,” he said.

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Kayode Adebowale, who was represented by Professor Malachi Akoroda of the Department of Soil Science, said what NITDA had done for the beneficiaries was to light their candles and he believed they would, in turn, light other people’s candles.

Professor Adebowale said, “Most of you would leave this school and go out there to replicate what NITDA has done for you. NITDA cannot train all of you but they have found you worthy of the programme and I believe you will also help them to train more people. When you start, others will follow.”

He implored the beneficiaries to start farming now because of the situation the world has found itself, noting that anything planted now adds value to wellbeing.

“Imagine the price of flour today because Ukraine is in war situation, I call on you to go out there and become the Ukraine of Nigeria,” the vice chancellor stated.

The Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, Professor Stella Odebode  expressed appreciation to the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami) and the NITDA Director General, Inuwa, for their foresight to inject digital technologies into farm practice, saying that it would make agriculture attractive to the youths.

“We assure you that we would ensure the sustainability of this programme and monitor the devices given to our students so as to see that they are used for the purpose you gave them for,” Professor Odebowale said.

Earlier, an agricultural entrepreneur, Mr Akin Alabi, who was one of the resource persons, noted that the NAVSA programme would add value to agricultural businesses in Nigeria, saying: “NITDA has imparted the prerequisite knowledge in the beneficiaries to ensure that the project does not fail and with this, we can take digital agriculture to the next level.”

The beneficiaries, who were drawn from different departments of the Faculty of Agriculture and Computer Science, praised NITDA, saying that the programme had broadened their horizons to think beyond seeing farming as a laborious enterprise.

Facilities put in place by NITDA for the successful implementation of the programme at the institution include connectivity to the beneficiaries, access to NAVSA platform, financial inclusion through the digital wallets on the NAVSA platform, insurance and E-extension services, smart demo farm, that is, smart irrigation and brooding system; a borehole at the university’s satellite farm in Ile-Ogbo, a smart irrigation farm system, a 500-litre water  tank, a surface water pump and solar inverter for the utilisation of the smart irrigation farm  system.

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