A tech expert, Chioma Okoro, says that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help farmers get greater yields and mitigate losses.
Okoro, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Wootlab Innovations, said this during an interview in Abuja on Monday.
She explained that with multimodal AI, which combines several types of data, farmers could be advised about what to plant, when to plant, when to apply fertiliser, and when to harvest among others.
She said that though AI’s full potential was yet to be realised, it already had a profound impact on agriculture and other sectors.
She gave example of Microsoft’s FarmVibes, an AI tool with features such as soil yield maps and analyses where farmers could assess yields on their farm and plan strategies to grow more.
According to her, insights from data and assistance by AI could augment a farmer’s knowledge and replace guesswork with concrete information, leading to increased efficiency and yield.
She said AI could also provide farmers with the tools necessary to meet the immediate and future needs of our food system.
“Digital agriculture promises to help address many of the challenges facing agriculture.
“Digitisation of the food system, with data and AI, can enable greater efficiency, transparency, profitability and equity.
“In developed countries, the use of digital technology has seen rapid growth and investment which has spurred many new innovations in farming,” Okoro said.
She pointed out that AI could predict the weather and the potential impact of weather conditions such as wind, rainfall or impending drought.
She said it could also help to predict crop stress or yield loss stemming from issues such as water and pests stresses.
She said this could help a farmer to take the right actions to mitigate the losses.
NAN
