PRESS STATEMENT

I want to welcome you all to the closing ceremony of ICT & Modern Agricultural Practices for Youths, Girls and Farmers. Let me start by saying that the theme of this training is "Promoting Gender Equality and Inclusiveness through digital skills and Innovations". This theme brings to bear the fact that Innovation and technology can support our cause for the realization of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls for sustainable development. This training was designed to expose the participants to innovation in the Agricultural Sector and to encourage everyone to take advantage of various benefits gained from the application of ICT in the Agricultural Value Chain. The world population is projected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050 and Nigeria is estimated to be the world’s third populous country by the year 2050. As you know, Agriculture employs over 75% of the country's workforce. Yet the demand for agricultural produce keeps increasing as the population swells while many of the small-scale farmers aren’t able to meet up with the demands. There is therefore an urgent need to think out of the box, be creative and innovative if we want to feed our growing population.
Information & Communication Technology is a vehicle that drives development in all sectors of the economy, including the Agricultural Sector. The benefits of ICT are many, some of the areas covered in the course of training are;
1. The use of Artificial Intelligence(AI) in Agriculture, which is emerging through the use of robotics, Soil and Crop Monitoring, and Predictive Analytics. When applied in Agricultural business, farmers will have the prospect of accelerated growth, high yields, increased profit and productivity.
2. The role of ICT plays in providing access to Communication Facilities such as Mobile phones, internet and emails, for the purpose of getting information about seeds, market prices, pest control and weather/rain patterns
3. Participants were shown how to keep record of agricultural stocks, sales and produce in an organized format
4. They were also exposed to entrepreneurship and how ICT can unlock the power of social media networking as essential farm tools for marketing, communication, collaboration
5. Having the skills on how to use office applications, participants can now develop and format farm documents, create daily transactions and inventory templates.
6. Participants were shown various Farm Mobile Applications useful in farming activities such Crop Doctor that does image processing to detect diseases.
7. Real-time data on commodity pricing were analyzed using to help participants make informed decision on crop selections based on land location, soil/crop management and sustainability, processing techniques and marketing techniques.
8. Finally, the participants were exposed to case studies on Poultry, Fish and Snail farming and our online repository of various researches on Agricultural activities.
In this training, a total of 40 participants, from various farmers associations across the country were selected for this training. Since inception, we have trained tens of thousands of Nigerians in our in-person and online platforms and from 2015 till date; we have provided about two thousand brand new laptops and other ICT equipments to female participants all over the country. We believe that the more farmers are trained and equipped with digital skills and resources, the easier it will be to reach the goal of the government to lift Millions of Nigerians out of poverty. For the participants, I want to assure you that we will continue to monitor your progress and to support your growth all year round.
Being a Trainer's program, it is our expectation that you will make maximum use of knowledge gained from this program and will share it with others in your locality. Apart from the digital skills acquired, each of you will be given a Certificate of participation, a brand new laptop, and a stipend for Transportation. I wish you all a safe journey to your destination
Thank you and God Bless.