The Federal Government and stakeholders in the agriculture sector have called for increased women and youth inclusivity in the sector through digitalisation to boost productivity.
They said this at the sideline of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Digital Village Initiative workshop on Thursday in Lagos.
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, said the inclusion of women in digitalised agriculture would help boost productivity in the sector.
“We should involve women more in digital agriculture, women should be left to handle the smart agriculture farming techniques like operating drones on the farms.
“The male farmers should be left with the more strenuous part of agricultural activities.
“We are working collaboratively with various organisations and the Ministry of Women Affairs, other sub-nationals, to see how to incentivise women in agriculture.
“So, I believe with increased awareness and the ease of doing agriculture, women will participate effectively in the sector. Even now, at the rural areas, a huge chunk of our farmers are women,” Kyari said.
The minister also spoke on the present administration’s drive to push mechanisation of the sector.
“President Bola Tinubu’s administration is heavy on mechanisation of the agriculture sector. Presently, we have procured 2,000 tractors to aid mechanised farming, already we have about half of them already delivered in Abuja.
“Through the use digital platforms, technology, innovation and mechanisation, we can ease up agriculture and can attract the teeming youth into the sector.
“Agriculture is a very worthwhile venture, we are going to have pilot schemes all over the country where we are going to adopt all the mechanisation programmes that President Tinubu has laid out.
“Across all digital platforms, through various innovation and technology ranging from greenhouses, to soil-less farming, climate-smart agriculture, use of drones in terms of fertilisation and chemical applications, and use of Artificial Intelligence will be adopted to increase yield and thereby increase profitability and food supply,” the minister said.
On her part, Prof. Faith Ibrahim of the Department of Agricultural Economics, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State, noted that digitised agriculture would encourage more youth inclusion into the sector.
“With the digital village initiative, which is all about digitisation of agriculture, we know that our youths of now are living in peculiar times and environment in which every youth you see is tech driven.
“The youth need a type of agriculture where indeed they will be allowed to see agriculture from the tech perspective and not just seeing it from the tech perspective, but being involved in the tech perspective for agriculture.
“With digitalised agriculture, youths can sit down in the comfort of their rooms and through tech be able to monitor the health of farmlands. They will map out farmlands with GIS platforms and all that,” Ibrahim said.
The President, Association of Deans of Agriculture in Nigerian Universities, Prof. Olumuyiwa Jayeoba said more Nigerian youth would be interested in agriculture if digitalisation is fully adopted.
“We need to use what attracts youth to get them interested in agriculture. With the way they are engrossed with platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter the best way to get them interested in agriculture is to transform agriculture with digital innovation.
“We can adopt digital agriculture to have more inclusive engagement of young people.
“For example, imagine having a tractor that they can plug in their MP3, MP4, while they are driving, they are having fun and we are working,” Jayeoba said.
NAN
