How AI is helping Nigerian farmers tackle crop diseases, improve farm decisions

By Cynthia Alo With many Nigerian farmers still relying on traditional knowledge to identify crop diseases and determine appropriate treatments, delayed access to agricultural advice often means problems are left unresolved until they affect yields. In some cases, farmers have to wait days for agronomists to visit their farms and recommend solutions.

CropCura, a digital agricultural innovation co-founded by Victor Onyekachukwu, is seeking to change this practice by bringing crop diagnosis and farm advisory services directly to farmers through technology. Onyekachukwu said the application allows farmers to take pictures of affected crops and receive an AI-powered analysis and recommendations on possible solutions in less than a minute.

Apart from crop diagnosis, the platform provides weather information, an AI advisory service and digital farm mapping which allow farmers to access information needed to make decisions about their farms. He said the innovation also addresses another longstanding challenge in Nigerian agriculture which is farmers’ difficulty accessing formal credit because of inadequate records.

Through digital farm profiles containing information about farmers, their locations, crops and farm sizes, Onyekachukwu said the technology will also combine a credit-scoring system that can help financial institutions assess farmers for lending. The platform, he said, currently has more than 2,000 farmers, who have mapped over 10,000 hectares of farmland.

However, Onyekachukwu identified language barriers, limited smartphone access, low digital literacy and farmers’ distrust of technology as obstacles to wider adoption. He said the government should introduce policies recognising verified digital farm profiles as acceptable evidence for accessing agricultural loans and grants.