Agriculture 4.0: An Implementation Framework for Food Security Attainment in Nigeria’s Post-Covid-19 Era

Abstract

The challenge of Nigeria's food insecurity in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic, insecurity, climate change, population growth, food wastage, etc., is a demanding task. This study addresses Nigeria's food insecurity challenges by adopting agriculture 4.0 and commercial farming. Using data from six digital libraries, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, and other internet sources, we conducted a Systematic Literature Review (SLR using PRISMA) on Nigeria's agriculture, food security, and agriculture 4.0. Our results show Nigeria's current agricultural state, threats to food security, and modern digital agriculture technologies. We adapted our SLR findings to develop an implementation framework for agriculture 4.0 in solving Nigeria's food insecurity challenge in the post-Covid-19 era. Our proposed framework integrates precision agriculture in Nigeria's food production and the necessary enabling digital technologies in the agri-food supply chain. We analyzed the critical implementation considerations during each agri-food supply chain stage of farming inputs, farming scale, farming approach, farming operation, food processing, food preservation/storage, distribution/logistics, and the final consumers. This study will help researchers, investors, and the government address food security in Nigeria. The implementation of agriculture 4.0 will substantially contribute to SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 3 (good health and well-being), and SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth) of #Envision 2030 of the United Nations, for the benefit of Nigeria, Africa, and the entire world.INDEX TERMS Agriculture 4.0, agri-food 4.0, food security, Sustainability, SDG goal 2, implementation framework, supply chain.

Public Perception of Radio Surveillance in the Distribution of COVID-19 Palliatives to Smallholder Farmers in Nigeria

“…Evidence is sufficient to show that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic have affected farmers and has posed a great threat to food security if sincere, drastic and immediate measures are not taken by relevant stakeholders, including the mass media [38,39,25,43,26,27,40,41,42,30,32]. "In order to cushion the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the citizens, the Federal Government of Nigeria had announced a number of responses: N500 billion COVID-19 Crisis Intervention Fund, 50 billion Naira CBN intervention fund for households and MSMEs, 20,000 Naira four months conditional cash transfer to the country's poorest, reduction in price of fertilizers as subsidy to farmers etc" [27].…”

“…A lot of other studies which captured the impact of the COVID-19 on agriculture and food security attest to the fact that the pandemic has severe effect on and a thread to food security if drastic measures are not taken [38,25,39,26,27,[40][41][42]31,30,32]. For instance, the impact of Covid-19 on Nigeria's already poor food security condition is evident from the inflation, unemployment, protest/violence, hunger/ poverty, political and economic instability witnessed in the country [31,32]. Similarly, Nigeria's 2020 hunger index ranking is between 4−14.9%, along with other countries like Mexico, Colombia, India, Thailand, etc., according to the World Food Programme hunger map 3.…”

“…Similarly, Nigeria's 2020 hunger index ranking is between 4−14.9%, along with other countries like Mexico, Colombia, India, Thailand, etc., according to the World Food Programme hunger map 3. These statistics show that Nigeria is not on track to achieving zero hunger by 2030 [32]. There is a strong connection between food security, good health, and any country's economic growth.…”

“…Globally, about690 million people (representing about 8.9% of the world's population) are hungry in 2019. Experts forecast that these statistics may increase by 80−132 million due to the Covid-19 pandemic impact [32].…”

“…It is however, not certain about the surveillance role of the radio in COVID-19 palliatives distribution to farmers, particularly smallholder famers which experts have said they have been badly affected by the outbreak of this novel pandemic [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. Oruma, Misra & Fernandez-Sanz [32] acknowledged that the challenge of Nigeria's food insecurity in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic ..., was a demanding task; while Nhemachena & Murwisi [30] revealed that:…”