Digital Farming: FG To Provide Job For 4 Million Farmers

The Federal Government says arrangements have reached advanced stage to provide job opportunities for about five million farmers in Nigeria.
Director-General/CEO of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, disclosed this recently at the closing ceremony of a five-day digital farming training for students of Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta.
Inuwa, who spoke virtually at the training held in Abeokuta, expressed the commitment of the Federal Government to develop the agricultural sector with digital technologies that would increase productivity, improve food security and encourage youths to venture into agriculture.
The NITDA boss, who was represented by the Director of Information Technology Infrastructure Solution of NITDA, Dr. Usman Gambo, explained that the agency, through digital farming, plans mass agricultural programme with 20,000 to 100,000 of new farmland in each state across the country.
He stated that the development is part of the Federal Government’s commitment to creating jobs for Nigerians and developing the nation’s economy.
”What we have done in NITDA is to change the narrative by coming up with initiatives that try to integrate digital technologies and innovations gradually into agriculture through the National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA)”, he said.
He also revealed that other digital agricultural initiatives will  support the digitization of the agricultural sector to address  the obvious challenges, exploit the opportunities and accelerate economic growth.
According to him,  this is in line with the Nigeria Economic Sustainability Plan (NESP) and the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy (MFoCDE).