Mobile Phone Technologies for Agricultural Knowledge Management in Nigeria: A Remedial Approach for Improved Productivity

In short, food sovereignty is threatened by an alarming rate of population growth. Due to this phenomenon, feeding the world’s expanding population while ensuring fair and sustainable development has become an increasingly difficult task. Farmers are expected to step up and meet this issue head-on by producing huge amounts of food; but before they can do so, they should have the knowledge necessary to enhance and raise agricultural output. Nevertheless, there is a severe lack of expertise among the staff (agricultural extension specialists) tasked with educating farmers about these enhanced techniques. Agroecology, biotechnology, sustainable agricultural development, and information and communication technology have all emerged in the wake of the recent technological and scientific revolution of the turn of the century. As a result, scientists have developed a variety of mobile phone technologies and applications to close the information asymmetry that exists between agricultural research institutes and the target audience that needs the information for enhanced or increased agricultural production. In the past 10 years, the proliferation of mobile phone technologies and applications has established new opportunities for knowledge management. These opportunities could be crucial in addressing current obstacles to information sharing, exchange, and dissemination, as well as in fully utilizing the wealth of knowledge available for agricultural advancement. This chapter is an effort to review the potentials of mobile phone applications, smart phone and mobile applications, use of mobile applications for agriculture in developing countries and mobile phone applications development as a solution to the agriculture problem in Nigeria.