Geographic Information System (GIS) And Its Nexus To Agriculture: Making Improved Technology Accessible To Farmers In Nigeria.
Volume 1 - Issue 4, October 2017 Edition
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Author(s)
Asiru Monday ABBAS, Unekwu Hadiza AMANABO
Keywords
nexus, geographic information system, applications, agriculture.
Abstract
The study examined agriculture, its challenges in Nigeria and how GIS can be applied effectively to help farmers to increase their yields. The study opined that agricultural production in Nigeria has taken a serious nosedive since the discovery of crude oil and for the country to regain her lost glory, improved technology must be applied to raise production in order to meet domestic needs, reduce dependence on imports which is costing the country billions of Naira on annual basis and one of such technologies is GIS. The study enumerated useful applications of GIS in agriculture in areas such as water quality control, soil suitability, agro-climatology, management of natural resources, disease and pest control. Also, the use of GIS helps to avoid excessive use of fertilizers and other chemicals which can have negative environmental effects based on analysis of data. It is recommended that government should make agricultural information, weather forecasts available to farmers in order to guide them in their decision making processes especially on annual rainfall pattern, soil suitability for a particular type of crop, disease and pest control, water quality control etc. The study suggested that farmers should embrace improved technologies such as GIS to plan their crop’s cultivation in cost effective manner so as to maximize yield.
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