NITDA pushes digital tools to bridge agricultural gap

The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, Kashifu Inuwa Photo: NITDA

The National Information Technology Development Agency is advocating an integrated digital infrastructure that would connect farmers to agricultural advice and enable the delivery of services across different locations, using technologies including artificial intelligence.

The Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, said Nigeria could no longer rely solely on face-to-face extension services to meet the needs of its growing farming population. He spoke at the Africa Agribusiness Extension Summit 2026, organised by Extension Africa in partnership with the agency in Abuja.

Represented by the Director of e-Government at NITDA, Engr Salisu Kaka, Inuwa said digital platforms could complement the existing extension workforce by connecting farmers with advisory services regardless of their location.

Rather than developing separate platforms that operate independently, he called for an interconnected digital ecosystem built around interoperability, scalability, security and reliable data.

Artificial intelligence could help analyse agricultural trends, generate recommendations and support early-warning systems that allow farmers to respond to emerging threats, he said.

The push comes as Nigeria seeks to improve agricultural productivity amid rising food demand. Access to timely information on planting, weather patterns, crop diseases and market conditions can influence farmers’ decisions, while gaps in extension services can leave producers without the technical support needed to improve yields.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, also called for greater investment in digital agricultural extension services, saying the conventional system had weakened over the years and that the ratio of farmers to extension agents had increased significantly in many areas.

“Mobile-based platforms and other digital channels could provide farmers with weather alerts, market information, crop-disease advice and other guidance needed to make production decisions,” the minister stated.

Kyari noted that technology should complement rather than replace conventional extension services, adding that digital solutions needed to reflect farmers’ practical circumstances.

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He called for greater investment by state governments, stronger participation by young people, and deliberate efforts to ensure women farmers could access the services.

Improving access to agricultural knowledge is important to efforts to raise productivity and support food security, particularly as Nigeria seeks to meet the needs of a growing population, the minister stated.

The scale of the challenge has also prompted efforts by non-governmental and private-sector organisations to expand the reach of agricultural advisory services.

The Chief Executive Officer of Extension Africa, Tajudeen Yahaya, noted that the organisation was established in 2021 to address gaps in Africa’s agricultural extension system and strengthen the delivery of advice to farmers.

Extension Africa has grown to about 7,000 extension workers across 16 states and reached more than one million farmers, Yahaya said.

He identified people, data, technology and partnerships as the main pillars of an effective extension system, calling for stronger collaboration among government agencies, private companies, development partners and technology providers.

The organisation is seeking to establish measurable benchmarks and develop practical solutions to improve the delivery of agricultural advice through stronger human capacity, reliable data, technology and sustainable partnerships.

For digital extension services to deliver results at scale, however, technology deployment will need to be accompanied by reliable agricultural data, accessible platforms and coordination among the institutions responsible for advising farmers. The emphasis on interoperability also points to the risk of fragmented systems that prevent information and services from being shared effectively.