Cloud-based System for Agro-Extension Services towards Combating Food Insecurity in Africa

Food security is one of the most fundamental requirement for the continual survival of mankind. The United Nations as well as Commonwealth of Nations have accordingly given so much attention to food security especially in recent times. Extension services offered by agricultural authorities helps to disseminate to farmers news, practices and equipment necessary for improving their periodic yield or productivity. Agricultural extension programme improves welfare through an increase in farmers' income. Unfortunately, in recent times, these services have been hampered by the various forms of unrest such as terrorism, kidnappings, banditry, and even outbreak of infectious diseases such as Ebola or even the most recent outbreak, COVID-19. As a result of concerns like these, there is recently an upsurge in the number of services that have been moved online as against the traditional method. Furthermore, the lack of adequate storage space for the massively generated agricultural information in today's modern electronic society is a huge problem that requires attention. This paper proposes an efficient cloud computing and mobile technology based agro-extension services system for use by extension services providers or officials. This will bring a lot of ease to extension services as well as go a long way in guaranteeing the safety and willingness of their agents to continue in rendering extension services required for effective farming.