Smart Farming: A Pathway for Food Security in Nigeria II, by Prof. MK Othman
This week’s article is a corollary to my November 13, 2024 article, in which I promised to continue discussing Smart Farming, an innovative way of increasing agricultural productivity to enhance food security. The article highlighted the urgent need for Nigeria to quadruple its food production to meet the domestic demand for food. The subject is necessary due to the exponential population growth in the country for the last thirty decades. The article advocated for massive adoption of innovative farming or “smart farming” to match the increase in food demand with the population increase. It is an easy pathway for Nigeria to achieve food security with an even export surplus to generate hard currency and boost the value of our local currency, Naira. Continuing the Naira devaluation is the surest way to increase the inflation rate and reduce the affordability and accessibility of essential food items. You may recall my question: What innovative agricultural technologies could attract Nigerian farmers and ensure food security in the country? There are several options; let us begin with the simple and easily adoptable ones.
The first is the production of Liquid organic fertilizer through rabbit farming.
Rabbit farming is similar to poultry farming, which is caged with feed, water, and medication. Still, recently, it was found that rabbit farming is very lucrative not because of the prolific nature of rabbits in terms of multiplying and easy feeding. Still, the urine is a top-class organic manure. In faraway Kenya, the income of rabbit farmers exponentially increased as rabbit urine became additional earnings to the revenue from the sales of rabbits. Rabbit farmers in Kenya claimed to have found a ‘minefield’ in rabbit urine. The Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture is already rendering unflinching support to this local innovation. An online newspaper, Standard Digital, quoted a top ministry official, Senior Assistant Director of Agriculture in the Ministry of Agriculture, Philip Makheti, who said the project by the national government of Kenya is under the Affirmative Action Fund, which is aimed at helping smallscale farmers to rear rabbits to benefit from the sale of the urine. “Many people often think of the rabbit’s meat, and then life ends at that. We need to think further of new solutions and ways of adding value to whatever we have in our farms,” Makheti said. He further said the market has a scarcity of organic fertilizer, and adding the rabbit’s urine to extract organic liquid manure will help farmers reduce over-reliance on inorganic fertilizers. The official was quoted during the commissioning of a plant for rabbit urine collection for organic fertilizer production at Kegoye Secondary School, near Nairobi.
READ ALSO: Smart Farming: A pathway for food security in Nigeria, by Prof. MK Othman
(www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/2001235713/rabbit-farmers-to-benefit-more-from-sale-of-urine). The average urine production per rabbit is 2.5 milliliter per day, and each milliliter can be mixed with ten litters of water to make the liquid organic fertilizer. The Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute has already validated the efficacy of organic fertilizer on crop production. This simple innovation has high potential in the Nigerian environment as a means of income generation for smallscale farmers, enhancement of soil fertility, and a viable alternative to inorganic fertilizer, which is expensive and sometimes adulterated.
Another innovative or smart farming technology is “hydroponics” or “soilless–agriculture.” Hydroponics is a creative farming practice that involves growing plants without soil. In hydroponics, plants are grown in a nutrient solution within the rooting system, which serves the growing environment. The technique is mainly for commercial food production but can also be used for small–scale food production. Hydroponics is the new way of planting beautiful plants in the limited space of a farmer’s home or backyard. Through this technique, a farmer doesn’t need to worry about using soil, which is necessary for the conventional plantation method. It is a better option for people who love gardening beautiful plants inside their homes. One can now grow vegetables, herbs, and fruits in a personal garden.
Many types of crops can be grown hydroponically. Grains such as oats, barley, wheat, sorghum, and corn have all been successfully tried and found promising. Similarly, a hydroponic system can produce vegetables such as pepper, tomatoes, onions, and cucumber. Another interest in hydroponics is fodder production, which complements the feeds of cattle and other large ruminant animals. This interest should be desirable to Nigeria, especially now that the nation is facing unprecedented murderous conflicts between Nomadic – Fulani and farmers in the country. The conflict has transformed from a murderous level to a large-scale mayhem, in which communities are maimed, killed, and displaced with their properties burned down. Cutthroat competition for agricultural resources among the users is the primary cause of the conflict, snowballing into a scary situation, demarcating some areas in the northwest zone a “no-go-area” except undertaking a suicide mission.
Growing fodder using the soil-less growing system is a new concept in Nigeria. However, this system has been in use for decades elsewhere, and it is used to supply a wide range of livestock types for many different purposes in varying living environments. It is a well-known technique for high fodder yield and year-round production with less water consumption. Fodder produced hydroponically has a short growth period of 7-10 days and requires only a tiny piece of land for production. It has high feed quality and is rich in proteins, fibers, vitamins, and minerals, which have therapeutic effects on animals. These unique features of hydroponic culture, in addition to others, make it one of the most critical agricultural techniques currently used for green forage production in many countries, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. Hydroponic fodder production supplies cereal grain with the necessary moisture and nutrients to enable germination and plant growth without a solid growing medium. The resulting green shoots and root mats are harvested and fed to livestock. The grain responds to the supply of moisture and nutrients by germinating and sprouting, producing a 150 – 250 mm long vegetative green shoot with interwoven roots within 7 to 10 days. Wheat harvested as feed and hay is a significant source of forage for livestock producers in most arid and semi-arid regions because it can be an inexpensive and readily available feed source. Forage wheat has good yield and has been found to have higher nutritive value and lower fiber concentration than other small grains (To be continued)
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