The Federal Government says it is ready to provide job opportunities for no fewer than five million farmers in Nigeria.
The Director-General/CEO of National Information Technology Development Agency, Kashifu Inuwa, disclosed this 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 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.
Inuwa who was represented by the Director of Information Technology Infrastructure Solution of NITDA, Dr. Usman Gambo explained that the agency, through digital farming planned mass agricultural programme with 20,000 to 100,000 of new farmland in each state across the country.
He claimed that the development was part of the federal government’s commitment to creating jobs for Nigerians and developing the nation’s economy.
He said “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) and other digital agricultural initiatives to support the digitization of the agricultural sector to address our obvious challenges, exploit the opportunities and accelerate economic growth.
“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).
“The NESP takes agriculture as a mainstay for economic recovery, diversification, and job creation. The plan proposed a mass agriculture programme to bring 20,000 to 100,000 hectares of new farmland under cultivation in every State of the Federation.
“The aim is to create five million job opportunities, directly and indirectly spanning the entire agricultural value chains, from ‘farm to table’. This can only be achieved by incentivising and engaging millions of Nigerians in farming and agro-processing.
“NAVSA has been designed to accelerate the achievement of the Federal Government objectives on massive job creation, economic diversification, and growth.
“NAVSA aims at facilitating the integration of digital technologies and innovations in the agriculture processes and practices in order to significantly increase productivity, improve food security, ensure an eco-friendly agricultural practice, attract potential talents and youths into agriculture professions to maximize outcomes, enhance agriculture value chain, create new value and opportunities through new business models and services, and ultimately enable the creation of millions of jobs while taking the people out of poverty and enabling economic growth and diversification”.
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