Leveraging Technology to Attain Food Security
In the face of rising complex challenges to global agrifood system occasioned by climate change, conflicts, economic downturn, COVID-19 fallouts, Gilbert Ekugbe writes that embracing science, technology and innovation will accelerate the attainment of zero hunger by 2030
Nigeria’s target to achieve zero hunger by 2030 might be elusive for two reasons. One, the country presently lacks the ability to produce enough food for its fast growing population. Two, the country’s ability to finance importation of food to argument its domestic food shortage is declining due to dwindling foreign reserve.
Yet, all hope is not lost if its government could muster the political will to transform the nation’s food sector by leveraging on science and technology to boost domestic food production.
According to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the world is on track to achieve zero hunger by 2030. The organisation believed that science, technology and innovation (STI) could accelerate the transformation of agrifood systems and make them more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable to deliver better production, better nutrition, better environment and a better life that leaves no one behind.
Meanwhile, the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) programme that was launched in 2018 is an integral part of the bank’s Feed Africa Strategy 2016-2025 whose aim is to help the continent to fulfill its enormous potential in the agricultural sector by employing high-impact technologies to boost output by leveraging on Africa’s natural advantage of hosting over 60 per cent of the world’s arable land.
Limitless opportunities of agri-tech
Undeniably, the potentials of agriculture technology are enormous especially for a country like Nigeria that still depends on manual labour. Experts in the industry have alss harped on the need to embrace agri-tch due to its ability to reduce human labour, tackle post-harvest losses and most importantly, increase the profitability of farmers by way of increasing crop value. They argued that with technology, farmers would put in less physical effort and still record bigger crop yields at the end of the year.
They pointed out that as farmers and land investors continue to embrace modern agro technologies, they could reap greater returns on their investments and see the value of their farms rise to an all-time high.
As agricultural technology evolves across the globe and more rural farmers adapt to technology, the farming industry and the lands that their farms occupy would become even more valuable.
Some of the benefits of agri-tech included increased crop productivity, reduced impact on natural ecosystems, increased worker safety, decreased use of water, fertilizer and pesticides, which in turn keeps food prices down. Other benefits are less runoff of chemicals into rivers and groundwater. In addition, robotic technologies allow for more reliable control and management of natural resources, such as air and water quality. It also gives producers greater control over the production, processing, distribution and storage of plants and animals, leading to greater efficiencies and lower prices, safer growing conditions and reduced environmental and ecological impact.
Agri-tech opportunities for Nigeria
There is no better time than now for Nigeria to prioritise massive investments in agri-tech to bridge its nation food supply gap. It can achieve this by investing half of what it is expending on food importation on smart agri-tech farming solutions that will enable the country to attain food security in the shortest possible time.
In addition, young agripreneurs have come up with smart farming solutions that could help to boost food production in the country. But like the saying goes: “Good things do not come easy,” these young set of agripreneurs are relying on heavy capital to achieve this feat.
This is why it is important that the federal government should create the environment for these agriculture gladiators to survive by providing them with working capital and equipment to bring their dream for agricultural revolution to life.
Again, there are so many agricultural research institutions lying fallow and operating sub optimally across the country that could be rejuvenated to perform even better if only they get the financial boost they required to get them firing from all cylinders. Moreover, these agric research institutions will do just fine if they venture into foreign partnerships that will grant them access to modern farm input upgrade.
For example, the Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi (FIIRO) has a wide range of locally fabricated farm machinery and equipment, but lacked the financial muscle to produce them in large quantities to reach out to half of the farmers nationwide. These locally fabricated machines can be brought to the market with support from many international agricultural bodies seeking foreign partnerships to achieve the zero hunger target by 2030.
