By Ahmad Alabira, Dutse
In a bid to promote research and application of Digital Technology to enhance yields in agriculture in Nigeria, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has signed an agreement with some higher Institutions to achieve the goal.
Director General of NITDA, Mr Kashufu Inuwa Abdullahi made the disclosure on Saturday while speaking to reporters on the activities of the Agency in Kano.
He specified that this will promote the federal government policy on digital economy.
According to him that, they are currently conducting a pilot project in Jigawa in collaboration with Federal University Dutse and in Ondo with the University of Akure as well as the Federal Capital Abuja.
The DG further stressed that, deploying Digital Technology in agriculture will make farming a fancy business and attractive to the youth, which will culminate in providing more job opportunities, and strengthen the country food security.
He added that deploying digital technology will reduce the quantity of water, fertilizer and labour required, while the yields will also increase reasonably.
“With the application of digital technology into modern farming, in one hectare, you can get higher yields than that of 10 hectares without similar technology”.
He explained that NITDA is trying to establish IT centres at the communities and institutions of learning across the country, as well as provide training to build the capacity of Nigerians to operate in line with federal government policy on Digital Economy.
According to him NITDA is committed to collaborate with all stakeholders to achieve 95 percent digital literacy and 99 percent Broad Band coverage in the country by 2030.
