– DEMONSTRATION FARMS
Seven farms. Every agro-ecological zone. Where the CSIS meets the field.
From the tropical rainforests of Cross River to the Sudan savanna of Kano, seven demonstration farms anchor the project in the lived reality of Nigerian agriculture, and validate the CSIS, the IoT deployment, and farmer engagement at scale.
Why seven farms, why these zones
Nigeria spans five major agro-ecological zones — from the mangrove and rainforest belt of the south, through the Guinea and Sudan savannas, to the Sahel in the north. A climate-smart advisory system that works in Cross River won’t necessarily work in Kano. Seven demonstration farms, distributed across these zones, give the project the spread it needs to test, validate, and refine the CSIS in real farming conditions.
Each farm serves three roles: it’s a test site for the CSIS, a deployment site for IoT sensors, and a workshop site for farmer engagement and the training programme.
Bauchi
Miya farm
Sudan savanna · cereals
233 ha
Kano
CDA Farm, BUK
Sudan savanna · teaching farm
22 ha
FCT
NASRDA Test Farm, Abuja
Guinea savanna · reference site
2.5 ha
Oyo
IITA Ibadan
Forest-savanna mosaic · research
1000 ha
Plateau
Jama Agricultural Farm Ltd
Highland · mixed systems
20 ha
Enugu
Umunze Cooperative Farm
Derived savanna · cooperative
75 ha
Cross River
Pending selection
Tropical rainforest · smallholder
2 ha
What happens at each site
Activity at each demonstration farm is structured around three concurrent strands:
IoT data collection
- soil moisture, ambient weather, and crop-health readings stream from on-farm sensors into the CSIS, where they’re fused with Copernicus Sentinel data for validation and calibration.
Workshops with farmers and extension officers - practical sessions on using the CSIS advisory channels, providing feedback on what works, and co-designing local improvements. Two workshop rounds are planned at each site.
Crop-cycle monitoring - through a full growing season, the team tracks how CSIS recommendations affected planting, pest management, irrigation, and harvest decisions, building an evidence base for the system’s impact.
Partnerships behind the farms
The demo farms are made possible through formal partnerships with the institutions and cooperatives that run them — among them the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA Ibadan), Bayero University Kano (BUK), the Umunze Cooperative in Enugu, and NASRDA’s own test farm in the Federal Capital Territory. Each partnership is grounded in a memorandum of understanding signed before the project’s kickoff.
The Cross River site is currently in final selection; the project is working with the Cross River State Ministry of Agriculture to identify a smallholder cooperative in the rainforest belt.
VISIT FIELD UPDATES
Field notes from the demo farms.
Read about what we’re learning at each site as the project unfolds, from sensor calibration in Kano to community workshops in Plateau.