Can Digitalization of Agriculture Provide Solution to Food Insecurity?
The World population has been predicted to grow by 2 billion in 2050 and half of that growth will be coming from Sub-Saharan Africa. This creates a pressing need for Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, to tackle the issue of food insecurity that is on the rise.
According to a Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO (2015) report, despite Nigeria having achieved the reduction of undernourishment of the population by more than half, from 19.3% in 1990 to 8.5% in 2010 to 2012, the number of people who are undernourished in Nigeria increased from roughly 10 million to almost 13 million from 2010 to 2012.
Presently in Nigeria, statistics show that households spend averagely 56.6% of their household budget on food.
In Nigeria, there has been a high level of food insecurity for the past four decades as a result of neglect in food production when oil became the highest export commodity in the nation. This has caused the Agricultural sector to continue to decline leading to a high state of food insecurity in the country.
In times past, Agriculture was considered a vocation for the poor and uneducated but as perceptions of farming continue to change with more people venturing into Agriculture, concepts like digitalization have been introduced as a way of making farming faster, more efficient, productive and in the long run solving the problem of food insecurity in the country.
Farmers are now looking into exploring new technologies to increase marketability and productivity in the sector.
Nigeria’s growing population which presently stands at 200 million translates to high demand for farm produce, and entrepreneurs, corporations and government continue to work together to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2) to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.”
What is Digitalization of Agriculture?
Although not yet widespread, Social media, drone technology, and remote sensing are some of the major examples of how farmers are digitally transforming how Agriculture is perceived in the country.
With social media, farmers from across the world can connect with each other and share ideas on the latest trends used in farming. Social media has also helped farmers to market their products easily through the internet and also for consumers to easily access the products.
Drone technology which is the use of unmanned aerial vehicles known as Drones, is used to assist farmers in optimizing the use of inputs such as seeds, fertilizer, water, and pesticides faster and more efficiently. With this, there is timely protection of crops from pests, time is saved for crop scouting, the overall cost of farm production is reduced, and a high yield of quality crops is secured.
Remote sensing which is the process of detecting and monitoring the physical characteristics of an area by the measurement of its reflected and emitted radiation is used in agriculture to get the soil moisture data and in turn determine the quantity of moisture in the soil and hence the type of crop that can be grown in the soil.
With remote sensing, farmers are able to tell where water resources are available for use over a given land and whether the resources are adequate.
Other forms of technology that have emerged are the use of aeroponics for a form of soilless agriculture and modern transportation systems.
The solution to food insecurity
While the digitization of Agriculture has made farming more productive in Nigeria, one issue that continues to arise is the fact that a major factor that affects food insecurity in modern times is the inability of the average Nigerian to afford the food that is being produced.
The rate of inflation continues to increase and while digitalization is helping to increase productivity, it is becoming increasingly harder for individuals to afford these products.
The increasing cost of securing technology for digitization will lead to farmers having to increase the cost of production making it even harder for the populace to afford the food produced
The issue of unemployment and poverty has to be addressed before food insecurity can fully be tackled with digitalization and as Nigeria continues to bear the title of the World’s “poverty capital”, food insecurity will continue to be a challenge for the country.