For Nigeria to improve its agricultural value chains efficiency and tackle food insecurity, experts say the country must leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) optimised tools.
These experts who spoke at the Market Access Africa Agri Council event held in Lagos recently said the country’s food supply chain can be improved with the use of optimised tools that monitor moisture levels and provide easy market access to farmers.
Riches Attia, co-founder and chief executive officer of Winich Farms said Nigeria will be able to achieve food sustainability, prevent post-harvest loss if the gap between farmers and market is bridged through tech.
Attai, who is into the technology side of agribusiness, owns an application that locates buyers to small and medium-scale farmers, helping to reduce post-harvest loss on the farmer’s side and enhancing food supply chain.
“One major challenge farmers face is accessing markets to sell their produce when and how they need it. What we have done is to create an avenue promoting small and medium-scale farmers,” he said.
According to him, for Nigeria to achieve a sustainable food value chain, farmers should be able to sell to consumers without much hassle.
Experts say burdensome levies by middlemen on farmers are fueling soaring prices of food in markets.
“We have set up agent centres in farming communities, such that, whenever farmers want to sell their produce, they no longer need to wait for off-takers to come to them,” Attai said.
“All they need to do is to locate the closest agent centre, just the way you locate the closest United States store to you.”
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Speaking on how with AI-optimised tools, farmers can determine the best planting season, Daniel Udeme-Joseph, managing director, Farm Monitor Africa, said to further increase food supply in the country, farmers can with the use of AI ascertain the best planting season for crops.
He said this would not only increase crop yields but also close the gap of food insecurity.
“Farmer Monitor Africa is an organisation that creates technology tools. One of our primary objectives is to find the people who are the least in need of farmers and farmer managers,” Udeme-Joseph said.
He added that with the use of AI-optimised tools, the scope of a farm as well as its potential crop yields can be determined.
“The scope of the field, the crop yields, the risk from the field, especially the flash flows can be monitored,” he stated.
The agripreneurs called for the adoption of technology-driven tools by Nigerian farmers to spur crop yields, cut down on lengthy crop production time, and reduce post-harvest loss while expanding the country’s food value chain.
