NiMet Pushes Digital Climate Services To Boost Nigeria’s Food Security

The Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) has reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening weather and climate information services for farmers as part of efforts to improve agricultural productivity, resilience and food security in Nigeria.

The Director General and Chief Executive Officer of NiMet, Prof. Charles Anosike, stated this in his goodwill message at the National Strategic Dialogue on the Preparation of the AGROW Component 2.2 National Implementation Strategy and Digital Agriculture Architecture.

The dialogue, organised by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security under the World Bank-supported Nigeria Sustainable Agricultural Value Chain (AGROW) Project, was held under the theme, “Building a Unified, Inclusive and Future-Ready Digital Agriculture Ecosystem for a More Productive, Resilient and Food-Secure Nigeria.”

Anosike said the initiative was particularly important to NiMet because of its mandate to provide weather and climate information that protects lives, supports livelihoods and enables informed planning across climate-sensitive sectors.

He noted that increasing climate variability, changing rainfall patterns and extreme weather events were creating growing challenges for farmers, making timely and reliable climate information essential for agricultural planning and decision-making.

According to him, NiMet provides Seasonal Climate Predictions, regular weather updates, agrometeorological services and impact-based advisories to help farmers make informed decisions on planting, water and input management while reducing avoidable losses.

The NiMet boss described digital agriculture as a critical pathway for translating climate information into practical, farm-level action. He highlighted the agency’s partnerships with Tomorrow.io and MTN on the Digital Climate Advisory Services system, which is designed to provide location-specific weather advisories to farmers through mobile SMS.

He also cited NiMet’s partnership with the Agricultural Innovation Mechanism for Scale (AIM for Scale) to strengthen the integration of artificial intelligence-based weather forecasting with digital advisory systems.

Anosike stressed that digital agricultural services must be delivered through accessible and trusted channels if they are to reach farmers effectively, adding that collaboration with extension services, technology providers, telecommunications companies, community radio and farmer organisations would be critical to achieving last-mile delivery.

He further emphasised the need for digital agriculture initiatives to reflect the realities of farmers, including language, literacy, connectivity, affordability and gender inclusion, while ensuring that farmers participate in the development of climate services.

The NiMet DG/CEO commended the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, for efforts to promote climate-smart agriculture and urged stakeholders at the dialogue to develop a practical, inclusive and measurable roadmap for integrating weather and climate services into decision-making across the agricultural value chain.

Anosike expressed optimism that the dialogue would advance climate-smart, digitally enabled and farmer-centred agriculture, while reaffirming NiMet’s readiness to provide the technical leadership required to strengthen climate services, support food security and build resilient livelihoods across Nigeria.