Challenges and Prospects of Incorporating Artificial Intelligence and Technology in Nigeria's Agriculture

Agriculture has been the mainstay of Nigeria’s majority population as it is self-generating and self-sustaining, and it continues to provide food and material needs for human sustenance. Over the years, agricultural production has continued providing some opportunities for food production, employment opportunities, and a source of livelihood. In Nigeria, agriculture continues to face some challenges: food crisis and insecurity due to global population increase, environmental degradation, prevalence and persistence of pests and diseases, low level of improved farming techniques, and lack of capital investments. However, contemporary scientific revolutions in Artificial Intelligence and Technology (AI&T) have, no doubt, transformed Nigeria’s agricultural production from traditional practices to modern agriculture, which led to high yields output, early detection of pests and diseases on plants and animals, optimization of farming practices, and weather prediction, among others. The development of AI&T and its eventual incorporation into agriculture has addressed some of the challenges facing the agricultural sector in Nigeria. Notwithstanding, problems continue to surface in the form of poor technical knowledge of AI&T, illiteracy among rural farmers, high cost of AI&T adoption, poor data management, and loss of agricultural-related jobs and opportunities due to automation. This research seeks to analyze how the integration of AI&T could be used to harness the agricultural potentialities of Nigeria, whereas the data used in this research were primarily secondary sources derived from the academia, United Nations Food & Agricultural Organization (UN/FAO), and other research institutions, including universities. For clarity, questionnaires were administered for data analysis and interpretation.