By Mus’ab Ibrahim, Kano
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) under the supervision of the office of the Minister for Information and Digital economy has introduced the National Village for Smart Agriculture (NVSA) program which is a digital platform aimed at transforming the Nigerian agricultural sector to advance stage.
Disclosing this during a media chat, the representative of the Director General NITDA Mr. Lukman Lamid explained that the NAVSA program is designed to help farmers and other agricultural ecosystem players to navigate their journey in the agricultural value chain adding that, the agency has provided farmers with agricultural inputs, cash payment and smart phones to help Nigerian farmers catch up with other agricultural ecosystem players.
Mr Lamid revealed that under the program, 130 farmers will benefit in the pilot stage with agricultural input that will aid farmer’s productivity, marketing, processing as well as consumption of commodities that they produced.
According to him, “the essence is to achieving new business models, create Job opportunities and also transform agriculture in Nigeria; by training and equipping farmers with digital capacity know-how that will transform them from being operators of subsistence farmers to commercial farmers” which he said will create more wealth, economic diversification as well as ensure food security in Nigeria.
