Precision Agriculture: Applicability and Opportunities for Nigerian Agriculture

Abstract

Precision Agriculture has evolved from a concept some decades ago into an emerging technology today. The catalyst for the emergence of Precision agriculture has been satellite positioning and navigation. The combination of Global Positioning System (GPS) and mobile mapping provide the agriculturist with a new capability of gathering information for implementing decision-based Precision Agriculture. While adoption of precision farming in wide concept has been modest in Nigeria the potential for using precision agriculture to address environmental, food security and sustainability problems seems not to be attracting political attention in Nigeria conditions. This paper discusses the applicability, opportunities of precision agriculture in Nigeria. It was identified that the small size of farms and fields in most of Nigerian agriculture limits economic gains from currently available precision farming technology. However, the public concerns for the environment and food security may mean that those potential benefits of precision agriculture are beginning to receive attention. Finally it was concluded that it is not impossible to adopt Precision agriculture in Nigeria but research efforts are needed to work out modalities for its adoption in the Nigerian agricultural scenario.