FG Seals AI Crop Monitoring Deal With Morocco, Targets 15 States

The federal government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Morocco-based partners to deploy a satellite and artificial intelligence-powered agricultural monitoring system across 15 states, in a move aimed at strengthening food security through real-time crop intelligence and data-driven policymaking.

The agreement, signed  at the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Ben Guerir, Morocco, will enable federal and state governments to monitor agricultural land, crop distribution, production performance and emerging food security risks using satellite imagery and AI technology.

Deputy Chief of Staff to the President (Office of the Vice President), Senator Ibrahim Hassan Hadejia, signed the agreement on behalf of the Federal Government with OCP Africa and geospatial technology firm Ground Truth Analytics.

Hadejia represented the Chairperson of the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit (PFSCU), Vice President Kashim Shettima, at the signing ceremony.

According to a statement issued on Saturday by the Technical Assistant on Agriculture to the President (Office of the Vice President), Marion Moon, the agreement formally launched the National Agro-Productivity System (NAPS), Nigeria’s first satellite-powered national crop monitoring platform.

The system is designed to provide real-time, AI-generated intelligence on crop yields, land availability and food security threats, enabling governments at all levels to make informed decisions on agricultural planning, investment and trade.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Hadejia said Nigeria must develop indigenous capacity to deploy and improve emerging agricultural technologies rather than relying solely on imported solutions.

“The problems we face should not define the limits of our ambition. They should inspire us to develop the technologies, institutions and capabilities required to overcome them,” he said.

He noted that agriculture is increasingly being transformed by data, precision farming, artificial intelligence and geospatial technologies, stressing that Nigeria must build the expertise to adapt such innovations to its own needs.

According to him, the platform will strengthen seasonal planning, agricultural investment, productivity monitoring and policy coordination by providing timely and reliable agricultural intelligence for both the Federal and State Governments.

“Our ambition goes beyond the deployment of technology. We seek to build a Nigerian capability that is adapted to our conditions, understood and managed by our institutions, supported by Nigerian expertise, and sustained through knowledge transfer, institutional capacity development and continuous learning,” Hadejia added.

Earlier, Moon explained that the National Agro-Productivity System was developed to bridge the information gap between projected agricultural production and actual harvest outcomes.

She said the lack of reliable in-season monitoring has often left policymakers making critical decisions without accurate information on what farmers are producing.

“We need stronger visibility during the season. If a farmer said they were going to plant maize, did they actually plant maize, or did they switch back to rice?” she said.

Moon explained that inaccurate production data often affects decisions on food reserves, imports and exports, making real-time monitoring essential for effective food security planning.

She noted that the platform operates within the National Agribusiness Policy Mechanism, a framework approved by the National Council on Agriculture and Food Security in November 2024.

According to her, the mechanism has already been piloted across 13 states through three planting seasons, reaching about 250,000 farmers, surveying over 50,000 of them across more than 2,000 communities and collecting over one million agricultural data points.

Chief Executive Officer of OCP Africa, Alafifi Laadel, described the agreement as a long-term partnership focused on knowledge transfer, institutional development and local capacity building rather than a conventional procurement arrangement.

She said the initiative would ensure Nigeria acquires the expertise needed to continuously improve and expand the technology.

Also speaking, Chief Executive Officer of Ground Truth Analytics, Driss Kitane, demonstrated how the platform uses artificial intelligence to analyse satellite imagery, identify individual farm plots, determine crops under cultivation and monitor their growth stages without manual intervention.

He disclosed that satellite images would be refreshed every five days, allowing authorities to track agricultural activities throughout the farming season.

Kitane added that the implementation would begin with one pilot state before expanding to three states with full crop intelligence and subsequently covering all 15 priority states through multi-season monitoring.

He also assured that all sensitive agricultural data generated through the platform would remain under Nigeria’s control and be hosted on servers located within the country.

The federal government delegation to Morocco included officials from the Office of the Vice President, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the Federal Ministry of Justice, the National Space Research and Development Agency, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and other institutions supporting the implementation of the National Agro-Productivity System.