Smart Farming: A Pathway for
Agricultural Revolution in Nigeria? II
Readers may recall my article two weeks ago
(20/4/208) with above caption. The article specifically highlighted the urgent
need for Nigeria to quadruple the food production to meet the domestic demand
of food. This is absolutely necessary due to exponential population growth in
the country for last thirty decades. The Nigerian population is averagely
increasing at the rate of 3 percent annually moving to meet a wolfing figure of
450 million people by the year 2050 from the current population of 194 million.
The article advocated for massive adoption of innovative farming or “smart
farming” to match food increase with population increase. This is an easy
pathway for Nigeria to achieve food sufficiency and even surplus for
exportation to generate hard currency.
As explained in the article, smart farming
are viewed from two angles; climate smart agriculture and smart farming
technologies. One of the smart farming technologies gaining momentum was “rabbit
farming” for the production of Liquid organic fertilizer and nutritious meat
for balanced diet. Rabbit farming is a simple innovation with high potential in
Nigerian environment as a means of income generation to small-scale farmers, enhancement
of soil fertility. It is also a viable alternative to inorganic fertilizer,
which is expensive and sometimes adulterated. Another smart farming technology
is “hydroponics” or “soilless – agriculture”.
Hydroponics is an innovative farming
practice of growing plants without soil. In hydroponics, plants are grown in a
nutrient solution within the rooting system, which serves growing environment.
The technique is mainly for commercial food production but can also be used for
small – scale food production. Hydroponics is the new way of planting beautiful
plants at the limited space of farmer's home or backyard. Through this
technique, a farmer doesn't need to worry about using soil, which is a
necessary for the conventional plantation method. It is indeed a better option
for people who love to garden beautiful plants inside their homes. One can now
grow different types of vegetables, herbs and fruits on a personal garden.
In conventional crops farming, usually, the
stems of the plants derive its oxygen from the water and soil while receiving
energy from sunrays. Hydroponics involves supplying the required amount of
nutrients to plant, when needed and as healthy as genetically possible. With
hydroponics, nutrients are easily and efficiently provided to the plants while
in the traditional use of soil it is more difficult and inefficient. Again, the plants are hydroponically grown in
an inert growing medium that contains a perfectly balanced pH and adjusted
nutrient solution within the rooting zone. The use of the nutrient solution
permits the plant to easily uptake nutrients as opposed to when the crops are
planted in the soil where they would have to search and extract the nutrients
while dissipating energy at the expense of their rapid growth. Thus, plant saves
energy in hydroponic system from nutrient intake thereby using it into
vegetative growth, fruit formation and flower production within a shorter time.
The nutrient solution is the combination of water and liquid fertilizer, with
the farmers getting to dictate how much and of which nutrients they wish to
give to the plants. Generally, fertilizers applied for both hydroponic and soil
plantation contains the same three major nutrients of nitrogen, phosphorus and
potassium. In addition, hydroponic fertilizers contain the proper amounts of
all the essential micro – nutrients and are usually in a more refined form with
lesser impurities as opposed to soil fertilizers. Soilless; means crop is not
planted in soil, thus, there is no occurrence of weeds or soil borne pests and
diseases in the hydroponics environment. Therefore, plants maintain optimum
nutrient and moisture levels in hydroponic system, which offer several
benefits: healthier plants, faster growing plants and ability to be more
disease resistant as plants are not stressed by drought, which weakens the
plant system. The root system covers smaller area on hydroponically grown
plants. Thus, plant can concentrate and uses its energy on producing plant
mass, rather than roots. This allows the grower to have more plants per square meter
of s growing space compared to conventional farming. Hydroponically, grown
plants never get root bound, so they do not need repotting. Hydroponic produce
has a longer shelf life than soil-grown produce. Hydroponics is clean. In
addition, it was reported that plants grown in hydroponic system taste better
than plants grown in the traditional method of using soil. This is because the
plants grown using hydroponics have all the essential nutrients readily
available to them contrary to plants grown in the soil whereby the important
micro – nutrients are often locked away in the soil preventing the plants to take
full advantage of these nutrients. That is why hydroponics is superior because
the grower has complete control over what minerals the plants are feeding on
and in what quantities. This advantage permits production of food crop that is
far superior in taste, color, size, and nutritional value. The merits for
hydroponic system are not exhaustive; they include reduced water usage, marginal
land use, and reduced growth time, reduced labour requirement, cost effective and
completely natural. Despite these advantages, hydroponic system is not a perfect
system; unfortunately there are few challenges. Some of the problems associated
with hydroponics are mold formation, bacteria and fungi. However, these problems
can be addressed through – sterilizing the grains surface to eliminate any mold
spores on the grain. In addition, the surfaces in the growing area can be sterilized
with chlorine or iodine, make provision for excellent shed ventilation as well
as use of sufficient and correct ratio balance of nutrients in the watering of
the plants. No doubt, Hydroponics - the science of growing plants in
nutrient-rich solutions instead of soil - has proven itself to be efficient
both financially and environmentally. It is indeed the newest and fastest way
to grow plants and vegetables, such as lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, celery,
watercress eggplants, beans, parsley, wild radish, leeks, strawberries, melons,
aromatic, medicinal plants and animal fresh feeds.
The hydroponic system requires a fraction
of the water usage of conventional farming while still supplying high quality food
crops. Example, it takes between 1 to 2 liters
of water to produce one kilo of plant under hydroponics compared with 80 – 90 liters
of water to grow a kilo of the same plant. Hydroponics should be highly attractive
to areas of water scarcity in Nigeria.
There are many types of crops that can be
grown hydroponically. Grains such as oats, barley, wheat, sorghum and corn have
all been successfully tried and found promising. Similarly, vegetables such as
pepper, tomatoes, onions, and cucumber can be produced using hydroponic system.
Another interest in hydroponic is the production of fodder to complement the
feeds of cattle and other large ruminant animals. This interest should be
highly attractive to Nigeria especially now that the nation is facing
unprecedented murderous conflicts between Nomadic - Fulani and farmers in the
country. The growing of fodder using soil-less growing system is a
new concept to Nigeria, although this system has been in use for decades elsewhere
and it is used for the supply of a wide range of livestock types for many
different purposes in varying living environments. It is a well-known technique
for high fodder yield, year round production with less water consumption.
Fodder produced hydroponically has a short growth period of 7-10 days and
requires only a small piece of land for production to take place. It has high
feed quality, rich with proteins, fibers, vitamins, and minerals with
therapeutic effects on animals. These special features of hydroponic culture,
in addition to others make it one of the most important agricultural techniques
currently in use for green forage production in many countries especially in
arid and semi-arid regions. Hydroponic fodder production involves supplying
cereal grain with necessary moisture and nutrients, to enable germination and
plant growth in the absence of a solid growing medium. The resulting green
shoots and root mat are harvested and fed to livestock. The grain responds to
the supply of moisture and nutrients by germinating, sprouting and then
producing a 150 – 250 mm long vegetative green shoot with interwoven roots
within 7 to 10 days. Wheat harvested as feed and hay is a
significant source of forage for livestock producers in most arid and semi-arid
regions because it can be an inexpensive and readily available feed source.
Forage wheat has good yield and has been found to have higher nutritive value
and lower fiber concentration than other small grains (To be continued)
