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Nigeria Launches AI-Powered National Crop Monitoring System
The Federal Government of Nigeria has launched the National Agro-Productivity System (NAPS), the country’s first national crop monitoring platform integrated with artificial intelligence and satellite technology. The initiative, designed to modernize agricultural decision-making and strengthen national food security, was formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding signed at the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Ben Guerir, Morocco.
The agreement was signed by the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit (PFSCU), Morocco’s OCP Africa, and the geospatial technology firm Ground Truth Analytics. Senator Ibrahim Hassan Hadejia, Deputy Chief of Staff to the President in the Office of the Vice President, signed the document on behalf of the Federal Government, representing Vice President Kashim Shettima, who chairs the PFSCU.
The system will provide federal and state authorities with real-time intelligence regarding land use, crop cultivation, production performance, and potential food security threats.
Bridging the Agricultural Data Gap
The NAPS initiative addresses a critical, long-standing deficiency in Nigeria’s agricultural planning: the absence of reliable, in-season data comparing farmers’ initial planting declarations with actual production outcomes. Marion Moon, Technical Assistant to the President on Agriculture and Executive Secretary of the PFSCU, noted that historical reliance on inaccurate production estimates has frequently led to poor policy decisions regarding food reserves, imports, and exports.
Monitoring during the season has been our biggest weakness,
Moon stated, explaining that the platform allows the government to verify if farmers planted their declared crops or switched to other varieties during the season. By providing timely data on planting patterns and crop yields, the system aims to enable policymakers to respond more swiftly to shortages and improve agricultural investment coordination.
Technical Capabilities and Deployment Phases
The technology utilizes artificial intelligence algorithms to analyze satellite imagery updated every five days. This process allows for the automatic identification of individual farms, the determination of specific crops planted, and the monitoring of crop growth throughout the season without requiring manual intervention.
The deployment of NAPS will occur in three phases:
- A pilot program in one state.
- Expansion to three states.
- Full-scale implementation across 15 priority states.
A framework approved by the National Council on Agriculture and Food Security in November 2024 saw the technology piloted across 13 states over three planting seasons. This preliminary work involved surveying over 50,000 farmers in more than 2,000 communities and generating over one million agricultural data points. Data generated by the platform will be hosted on Nigerian servers, with control over sensitive information remaining under national authority.
Building Indigenous Capacity
Government officials emphasized that the project is intended as a long-term investment in local expertise rather than a simple procurement of foreign technology. Senator Hadejia stated that Nigeria must move beyond the role of a technology consumer to become a developer of innovations, with a focus on knowledge transfer and institutional capacity development.
Our ambition goes beyond deploying technology,
Hadejia said. We want to build a Nigerian capability managed by our institutions, supported by local expertise and sustained through knowledge transfer, institutional capacity development and continuous learning.
Sources: Spaceinafrica, The Guardian Nigeria News.
