FG’s AI crop monitoring deal with Morocco, targets food security gaps in 15 states

…To strengthen food security in rural areas, support accurate data in agricultural produce

 

​The Federal Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Morocco to deploy a satellite- and artificial intelligence-powered agricultural monitoring platform across 15 states. The initiative aims to address persistent agricultural information gaps.

​The project is designed to provide state and local governments with real-time data and intelligence on Nigeria’s agricultural land, crop distribution, production performance, and emerging food security risks.

​Building national capability
​The Presidency emphasised that Nigeria must not merely adopt emerging agricultural technologies but must also build internal capacity to improve and adapt them to national conditions.

​Marion Moon, Technical Assistant to the President on Agriculture, stated that Ibrahim Hadejia, Deputy Chief of Staff to the Vice President, signed the agreement at the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Ben Guerir, Morocco. The signing included representatives from Morocco-based phosphate giant OCP Africa and geospatial technology firm Ground Truth Analytics.

​Closing the visibility gap

​Driss Kitane, chief executive officer of Ground Truth Analytics, demonstrated how the technology closes mid-season visibility gaps. Using Kano State as a sample, he showed how AI algorithms ingest raw satellite imagery to automatically delineate agricultural parcels, identify specific crops, and track growth stages without manual human input.

​”Every parcel you see here has been delineated by artificial intelligence; nobody manually drew them,” Kitane said. “We can do this at massive country and even continental scales. The images refresh every five days.”

​He cited success stories in Morocco, where the platform predicts national wheat production three months before harvest with 90 to 95 per cent accuracy. This capability proved critical in Morocco, where drought reduced output significantly over a decade.

​Data sovereignty and implementation
​Regarding data governance, Kitane confirmed that all developments are sovereign to Nigeria. “Everything we develop is sovereign to Nigeria. It will be hosted on Nigerian servers. All sensitive data stays on those servers, and no one can access that data unless Nigeria decides so,” he stated.

​The three-phase implementation plan includes a minimum viable product (MVP) for one state, followed by expansion to three states with full crop intelligence, and finally, multi-season monitoring across all 15 priority states.

​Addressing food security emergencies
​The agreement marks the formal launch of the National Agro-Productivity System (NAPS). This initiative comes three years after President Bola Tinubu declared a state of emergency on food security in July 2023, following the removal of petrol subsidies and the unification of the naira exchange window, which triggered high food inflation.

​Food inflation exceeded 40 per cent year-on-year at its 2025 peak. This crisis was further compounded by insecurity in North-West and North-Central farming belts, climate disruptions in the Middle Belt, and structural weaknesses in agricultural data infrastructure.

​Strengthening policy and coordination

​Hadejia noted that national challenges should inspire the development of local institutions and capabilities. “Agriculture is being transformed by data, precision agriculture, artificial intelligence and geospatial technologies. Nigeria must build the capability not only to adopt these innovations but also to continually improve them,” he stated.

​Moon, who also serves as Executive Secretary of the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit, explained that NAPS is the federal government’s response to the costly information gap between farmers’ production declarations and actual harvest results.

​”Monitoring during the season has been our biggest weakness,” Moon said. “Domestic production happens at the subnational level while trade policy decisions are made at the federal level. The Federal Government needs real-time visibility into what is happening on the ground to make trade decisions that complement subnational production.”