Dr. Nwamaka Okafor, a Nigerian postdoctoral researcher at Argonne National Laboratory in the U.S., has urged the Federal Government to embrace Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to transform agriculture and boost food security.
Speaking at the ongoing Heidelberg Laureate Forum in Germany, Okafor said deploying smart and automated systems in farming would help Nigeria move from a consumption-driven economy to a production-focused one.
Her project, “Empowering Agriculture through IoT, AI and Citizen Science”, funded by the Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation and the Klaus Schirra Stiftung, centred on designing AI-enabled IoT devices for monitoring crop conditions in Nigeria. She noted that farmers who participated in training sessions were impressed by the efficiency of real-time data collection compared to manual methods.
“Manual processes are very slow and not very productive, but when replaced with automated processes using technologies like AI and IoT, yield and efficiency increase,” she said, while stressing the need for proper sensitisation to address initial scepticism among farmers.
Okafor also called on Nigerian researchers in agriculture, engineering and computer science to collaborate in developing home-grown solutions, saying: “When technology is built by the people who use it, it is more powerful. You know your story and your pain points, so you can design solutions that fit you best.”
