By Chibuzor Emejor / Correspondent, Abuja
West Africa Agricultural Productivity Programme (WAAPP) has begun a week-long training workshop on the Global Positioning System (GPS) to enhance precision farming in Nigeria.
The participants, made up of WAAPP Coordinators and Assistant Coordinating Officers, were drawn from several universities, Research Institutes and Agricultural Development Projects across the country.
In his opening remark at the event held in Kaduna, the National Project Coordinator of WAAPP, Prof. Damian Chikwendu, underscored the need for accurate measurement of farm sizes, track project activities and sites.
Precision agriculture, he explained, is an integrated crop management system that attempts to determine the kind and amount of inputs with the actual crop needs for small areas within a farm field.
Clarifying further, he said, it is often referred to as GPS (Global Position System) based agriculture, variable-rate farming, precision farming, site-specific farming, among others.
Chikwendu also reminded participants that Precision Farming is, “doing the right thing, at the right place and at the right time”.
Doing the right thing, he said however, starts with good managers and good operators doing a good job of using common goods such as planters, harvesters, fertiliser applicators and whatever else that may be needed.
He therefore charged participants to make use of the opportunity and take away from the best of the resource consultants assembled for the training.
The workshop, he said, was aimed at acquainting participants with Precision farming techniques in terms of using technologies such as Global Positioning System (GPS), Geographic Information System (GIS), Remote Sensing, and Yield Monitors guidance systems for various rate application.
In his address, the Lead Consultant of Clemence and Geoconsult, the outfit conducting the training, Aminu Usman, lauded WAAPP for initiating the training programme.
The Global Positioning System, he noted, would expose participants to unending possibilities and applications to everyday field operations, as he urged participants to seize the opportunities to improve their knowledge to enable them join hands in the current drive to take the country to a level of sustainable agricultural development and food security.
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