ICT for agricultural management: A tool for regional competitiveness in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper presents some solutions to how Nigerian agricultural sector can become great again, recalling the glory days, when the sector was the national economic backbone. The paper explained some of the challenges that agricultural farmers faces in Nigeria and how scientific application of ICT as a means of quick dissemination of farming skills, techniques and proper resource allocation, could aid the nations farming sector to achieve it aim. The objectives of this paper are to determine an alternative means of farming that would enhance the contribution of the agricultural produce in Nigeria and also to encourage the use of modern day technologies by farmers to improve their farming techniques and produce. The concept of the growth pole technology was adopted as a means of enhancing the current farming situation and ICT is our focal tool in driving the growth pole strategy. The discussions in this study are premised on the concept of ICT, Growth Pole strategy, and the importance of agriculture as an alternative source of Income generation.The methodology aimed at achieving some of the following in the discussion that ICT-enabled service, often use multiple technologies to provide information to rural farmers on forecasts so that they can prepare for weather-related events (Balaji and Craufurd, 2011; Gunda et al, 2017). The proliferation of mobile phones across the globe has not impinged agriculture in various ways. Mobiles are being used to help raise farmers’ incomes, making agricultural marketing more efficient, lowering information costs, reducing transport costs, and providing a platform to deliver services and innovate (Honrao, 2012; Khapayi and Celliers, 2016). Recommendation were made on Knowledge management application, where the study made suggestions to the federal ministry of information and communication technology that they should create a user friendly application that farmers could easily associate themselves with and share knowledge with each other, also the application should create room for researchers to post their own findings to aid farmers with modern ways of farming.