By Chris Ochayi
The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola has charged surveyors to deploy geospatial technologies and techniques to unlock the land and improving the soil for sustainable food production and security.
Fashola, who gave the charge at the opening ceremony of the 2021 Survey Coordination Conference and meeting of the Adversary Board on survey training, Tuesday in Abuja, also emphasized on better collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and other relevant authorities towards boosting agricultural production.
Speaking further at the conference with theme; Geospatial Approach to Harness Agro Planning and Food Sustainability for Economic Development”, the minister noted that, presence of personalities at the conference demonstrated genuine commitment towards the advancement of the country and understanding of the important role of surveyors in nation-building and economic prosperity.
Fashola said the theme was deliberately selected to underpin the undisputed place of the agriculture as the substructure of socioeconomic growth and development, adding that “It is also reinforcing the economic diversification agenda of the Federal Government of Nigeria.”
According to him, “As solution providers, it is my earnest belief that this conference of surveyors will brainstorm on more feasible approach by which geospatial technologies and techniques can be deployed in unlocking the land, assessing and improving the soil for sustainable food production and security.
“I strongly believe that the outcomes of various discourses at this conference will provide the Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation (OSGoF) the basis for better collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and other relevant authorities towards boosting agricultural production.
“It is hoped that this collaboration will inform actions that will encourage critical agro planning and food sustainability for economic development.
“To be able to meet the geospatial needs of MDAs, surveyors from OSGoF are being posted to them to man their Surveying and Mapping Units so as to also cement existing relationship with tile MDAs hence effective decision-making and implementation of projects can hardly be achieved without geospatial data.
“In line with the Federal Government Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangements, OSGoF has franchised its services and some operations in order to provide easy access to geospatial products for various stakeholders and sectors of the economy. This is also to enhance the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the Government.
“With the understanding of the Presidency, efforts are being made to revamp the High Performance Data Centre of the Office. Once this comes through, our geospatial products and services can be easily accessed from anywhere, and the Government can be assured of good revenue generation.
“At this juncture, I am glad to announce the readiness of OSGoF to migrate from the Nigeria National Origin (NNO) to the World Geodetic System (WGS) 84-lnternational Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF) 2014 to achieve best practices in the geospatial world. It means that as from 2022, all maps will be produced based on the WGS 84-ITRF 2014.
“We therefore appeal to all states in the country to also migrate for us to have a common reference point and avoid the burdens of conversions to align with International Best Practices.”
In his address earlier, the acting Surveyor General of the Federation, Surv. Abduganiyu Adeyemi Adebomehin recalled that before the discovery of oil, agriculture no doubt is the mainstay of every economy.
He said, “With the discovery of oil at Oloibiri in 1956 by Shell BP, attention was diverted from this critical sector of the economy when Nigeria joined the ranks of oil producing States in 1958.”
“Although, we have failed in tapping our rich agricultural resources over the years, agriculture itself is already encumbered by climatic and environmental factors.
“It means’ that for us to achieve food sufficiency and security, there is urgent need of applying geospatial inputs into our agricultural system, hence the incumbent administration is paying diligence to agriculture as part of efforts in achieving the diversification of the economy; the plan is to help in redirecting the country from the unhealthy path of mono-economy.
“I must say that these efforts have been achieved to a reasonable level in sectors such as ICT, Creative Industry and Agriculture since the coming of this Government.
“For instance, under the Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Programme (Phase 1) with a life span covering 2015-2022, introduced by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, farmers with the intervention of the private sector made about N11.60billion in
“Environmental space already consumed by physical infrastructure remains top Agricultural Producing States. Attaining food sufficiency and security is not is not by rocket science, but with the use of requisite geospatial data and scientific application, they are where they are today. “ (vanguard)