The study examined the involvement of rural women in oil palm value chain activities in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. Data was collected from two hundred and ten (210) respondents purposively selected from rural oil palm women farmers in Akwa Ibom State. Collected data was analyzed using frequencies, percentage and ranking method. The results showed that the respondents were in their prime age (youthful age/active age) 26-50 years of age. Majority of the respondents also had formal education (primary, secondary or tertiary). Furthermore, most of the respondents (63.8%) were married as that served as labor for the oil palm value chain activities. Also, most of the respondents had a household size of 1-5 persons. A greater percentage of the respondents equally had 11-20 years experiences in oil palm business. In assessing the oil palm value activities the respondents were involved in, the result revealed that the respondents were actively involved in the processing, marketing and storage of the oil palm business. They were less involved in the planting and harvesting of the palm fruits which was more cumbersome and manly. Among the constraints, lack of finance was identified as the topmost constraint to risk, high cost of labor, high cost of transportation, theft etc. The study recommended that government/stakeholders should ensure that the rural women have access to credit and technology to make the business more attractive to the young women.

Youth involvement in agriculture is beneficial to the economic growth of a nation as it will reduce unemployment and curb crime rate. One sector that has over the years been identified to have the needed capacity to provide employment opportunities to the youth is agriculture but most youth do not have interest in agriculture. Therefore, the study examined the determinants of youth participation in agribusiness in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. A total of two hundred and fifty (250) respondents were selected using a multistage sampling technique. The sampling technique used was descriptive and regression analysis. The major constraint identified were lack of initial capital, lack of land, high cost of agricultural inputs, lack of market for agricultural produce, low returns (profit), lack of agribusiness knowledge, poor incentive, lack of access to credit, lack of agricultural insurance, lack of facilities and lack of interest were the identified constraints. In determining what would drive youth into agribusiness, access to agricultural inputs, access to facilities/machineries, access to market for agricultural produce, high returns (profit), incentive, access to credit, availability of land and training on agribusiness were the statistically significant factors that determines the youth participation in agribusiness. The study therefore advised that vocational training should be made compulsory in schools where the young ones are exposed to agriculture as entrepreneur with incentives attached.

Agriculture plays an essential role in the economy of Nigeria as it provides food for the entire population of a country and also provides raw materials for the non-agriculture sectors of the economy. Nigeria's agriculture is made up of a higher percentage of smallholder farmers who are often exposed to shocks and have less capacity to combat the impact and increase the rate of recovery due to shocks. Therefore, the strengths and weaknesses of farmers' knowledge systems are important in building a resilient agricultural sector to improve farmers' food security, and livelihoods and build resilient capacity toward pandemics. The COVID-19 pandemic was a big threat to Nigeria's food security since the bulk of the food produced in Nigeria is by the smallholder farmers who are often vulnerable to shocks. The paper examined smallholder farmers' knowledge, attitude, and perception of the COVID-19 pandemic using descriptive statistics. A total of 400 smallholder farmers in the study area were interviewed about their knowledge and perception of the COVID-19 pandemic. The finding showed that 332 of the respondents were aware of the virus, 340 did not believe in the existence of the virus, 365 believed they cannot be infected by the virus, and 271 adhered to government-imposed measures on combating the virus. On the methods employed to mitigate the spread of the virus in the study area, 180% of the respondents observed the social distancing, 78% used hand sanitizer, 48% wore nose masks and 40% reduced farm visits.

Agricultural production/activities in Nigeria depends on rainfall, which often occurs only at certain times of the year and thus makes agriculture very susceptible to crop failure, insect infestation which causes poor returns on agricultural produce for farmers . Adoption of climate change mitigating strategies is key to coping with variations in weather conditions and the achievement of increased agricultural production and food security in Nigeria. This study analyzed the use of climatic adaptive measures among smallholder farmers in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was used in selecting 200 respondents in the study area. Primary data was collected using structured questionnaires and the data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and a regression model. The results showed that the most climatic adaptive methods adopted by the farmers were multiple cropping (90.0%) followed by mulching (62.50%), crop rotation (25.0%), and cover cropping (22.50%). According to the findings of the research, the farmers identified multiple cropping as the most suited climatic adaptive method to the farming system in the study area to avert the uncertainty associated with agriculture. The regression analysis showed that age, sex, marital status, household size, educational qualification, access to credit, agriculture extension contacts, membership of farmers groups/cooperatives, and monthly income influenced the adoption of the climatic adaptive measures by the smallholder farmers in the study area. Government and other agricultural stakeholders should therefore take steps to improve the climate resilience of smallholder farmers by building their capacity on multiple cropping

Digital farming holds enormous potential for agricultural development, and giving farmers the tools to boost productivity and profitability. Although the benefits of digitalization are numerous, farmers feel they are not the ones benefiting from the value of data collected on their farms. Several issues were identified as factors restricting farmers from benefiting from data-driven agriculture. From the farmers’ perspective, there is a distinct lack of awareness of the issues surrounding farm data, and the complexity of these issues. This feeds into the imbalance that exists between individual farmers and larger agribusinesses wherein the former lack enough resources to address and analyse the significance of data, and so cannot take advantage of the value in it. There is also limited legislation for the generation, flow, exchange and use of data; where legislation does exist, it is not well understood by farmer organisations. From a policy perspective, moreover, there is very little guidance as to which agricultural data can be considered personal data, and therefore protected by privacy laws. This paper analyses the interactions and effects of the 5 Concepts: Open Agricultural Data, Open-Source Software, Citizen Science, privacy and legal and ethical issues that are assumed to advance the digitalization of African Food System (AFS and the enabling Digital Innovation Hub (DIH) - SmartAfriHub (https://www.smartafrihub.com/home).