– THE CSIS
A Climate Smart Information System (CSIS) co-developed with NASRDA, built to reach every farmer in Nigeria.
The CSIS is the project’s flagship deliverable: a multi-tiered information system that turns Copernicus Earth Observation data into practical, locally-relevant guidance for Nigerian agriculture.
What the CSIS is
The Climate Smart Information System (CSIS) is one of the five specific objectives of the project — and the one that touches farmers most directly. It integrates Earth Observation data, weather forecasts, and ground-truth sensor readings, then delivers tailored advice through four channels designed to reach every literacy level and every type of phone.
The team is developing the CSIS through five stages. It begins with a co-designed requirements phase led by NARSDA and Nigeria’s Ministries of Agriculture and Livestock, progresses through the development of ten functional prototypes into a minimum viable product and then a full platform, and concludes with the permanent operational handover to NARSDA at project close.
The four-channel design
Rather than building a single app and hoping farmers find it, the CSIS treats reach as a design constraint. Four channels run in parallel — each tuned to a different level of technology access and literacy. The Spectrum below sets out who each channel is for and how it works.
THE SPECTRUM
One system. Four channels.
Everyone reached.
The CSIS is designed as an inclusive, multi-tiered information system, meeting farmers, extension workers, agencies and policymakers where they already are, across the full spectrum of technology access and literacy.
01 · LOW-TECH
Voice AI Advisory
For rural farmers
Q&A via a local LLM, in local languages, accessible from any basic phone.
- Basic phone
- ITTS, Hausa, Yoruba
- Telco voice integration
02 · LOW-MID
SMS & USSD
For farmers & pastoralists
Real-time rainfall and stress alerts for cattle, goats, and sheep.
- EO + weather data
- Phone, no internet
- Localised, opt-in
03 · MID-HIGH
Mobile App (Offline)
For extension workers
Field crowdsourcing, cached maps, auto-sync, voice and image capture.
- Android
- OpenEO workflows
- MapBloom integration
04 · HIGH-TECH
Web Dashboard
For NASRDA & LGAs
Advanced analytics, policy-grade dashboards for counties and federal use.
- Desktop / Cloud
- Policy dashboards
- Federal & state tier
Built with NASRDA, owned by NASRDA
The CSIS is being co-developed with NASRDA’s Strategic Space Application department, which has run Nigeria’s downstream EO services since the launch of NigeriaSat-1 in 2003. NASRDA brings deep domain expertise in Nigerian agro-ecological systems, working relationships with state-level agriculture ministries, and the institutional mandate to operate space-derived services for the federal government.
By the end of the project, the full digital archive — code, documentation, training materials, operational handbooks — transfers to NASRDA. The system is designed from day one to run beyond the consortium’s involvement.
Open source by default
The CSIS runs on an open-source stack. Core building blocks include OpenEO (VITO’s open API for Earth Observation processing), FlowCell for IoT-EO data fusion, and the Ramani MAProom family of climate visualisation tools. All consortium-developed code will be released openly and made available to NASRDA and the wider public.
Where the CSIS is tested
The system is being validated at scale across seven demonstration farms covering every Nigerian agro-ecological zone — from the Sudan savanna in the north to the tropical rainforests of Cross River. Each farm hosts an IoT station feeding the CSIS, and serves as a workshop site for farmer engagement.
WHERE IT IS BEING TESTED
Seven demonstration farms across Nigeria.
See where the CSIS is being validated at scale; the farms, the zones, and the IoT deployment behind the system.