Nigerian agricultural sector is dominated by smallholder farmers who constitute about 80% of all the 29,800 million farm holdings in Nigeria. These farmers make use of simple farm implements together with family and hired labours in carrying out most of the farming operations. The availability, accessibility and affordability of labours for different farming operations such as planting, weeding, application of fertilizer and harvesting during crop production have been found to have positive impact on production performance of the farmers.

However, labour is now a major constraint in crop production in the sense that most active working age young people have migrated from rural to urban areas in search of better job opportunities and improved standard of living and this has affected the crop production negatively. As a result, rural-urban migration have a negative impact on agricultural productivity. Farmers have suffered a lot of damages in their crop productions which include increase in weed competition, incidence of pest and diseases and loss of crop output due to limited supply of labour. Hence, the cost of labour in any crop production has increased and found more that 50% of the total production. The way forward to cope with the challenges of inadequate supply of labour in crop production is modernizing agricultural production through Agricultural drones.

Agricultural drones fly around 50 – 100m high. These drones can fly under any weather condition and are water resistant but image quality can be damaged if pictures are taken during rainy weather.  Agricultural drones applied to farming in order to help increase crop production and monitor crop growth. The drones can do most of the farming operations such as application of agrochemicals and liquid fertilizer. Drones can help farmers to optimize the use of inputs (seed, fertilizers, water), to react more quickly to threats (weeds, pests, fungi), to save time crop scouting (validate treatment/actions taken), to improve variable-rate prescriptions in real time and estimate yield from a field. Moreover, through the use of advanced sensors and digital imaging capabilities, farmers are able to use these drones to help them gather a richer picture of their fields and this also reduce the number of labours required on farm. This technology enables farmers to collect, store, combine and analyze the layers of data that drive precision nutrient and irrigation management. There are a variety of sources a farmer can use to build data layers such as yield monitors, soil sample results, moisture and nutrients sensors and weather feeds and useful data sources.

Majority of farming operations done in Nigeria are still without agricultural drone and this remains an agribusiness opportunity that very few or no one has exploited. Even though agricultural drone can be too expensive for individual farmers to buy, government at all levels can make this available for farmers while farmers in different cooperative societies can also buy so as to increase agricultural productivity. In addition, individual who is interested in agribusiness can buy agricultural drone and render the service to the farmers so as to increase food production in Nigeria while the owner is making cool money from the service rendered to the farmers.

REFERENCES

Adebayo, A. (1999): Youth unemployment and the national directorate of employment self-employment programme. The Nigerian Journal of Social and Economic Studies. 41:81-104.

European Agricultural Machinery Association (2016): The use of drones in agriculture Facts & Figures

K.A. Oluyole K.A  Dada O.A., Oni O.A., Adebiyi S., Oduwole O.O. (2013): Farm Labour Structure and Its Determinants among Cocoa Farmers in Nigeria. American Journal of Rural Development, 1 (1): 1-5

Okuneye, P. A. (2000):“Employment Generating Potentials of Agricultural Processing and Storage Technology: Additional Gain in Increased Food Availability Pursuit” Paper presented at the workshop for local government officials in Lagos state.

Oluyole, K. A., Adebiyi, S. and Adejumo, M. O.(2007):  An Assessment of the Adoption of Cocoa Rehabilitation Techniques Among Cocoa Farmers in Ijebu East Local Government Area of Ogun state. Journal of Agricultural Research and Policies. 2 (1): 56-60.

Tom McKinnon, Agricultural drones (2016): What farmers need to know. Agribotix LLC.