3 Best APIs for Farming in Nigeria

iSDAsoil is an open-access soil data service developed by the International Soil and World Isric Data Centre for Africa, providing 30-meter resolution soil property maps across sub-Saharan Africa derived from machine learning models trained on thousands of soil samples collected across the continent. The iSDAsoil API provides programmatic access to this dataset, allowing agritech platforms, researchers, and farm advisory systems to query soil properties at any coordinates in Nigeria and across sub-Saharan Africa without requiring costly soil testing. The dataset covers 17 key soil properties including pH, organic carbon, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, soil texture (percent sand, silt, and clay), bulk density, cation exchange capacity, and soil water holding capacity. These properties are provided at multiple soil depth layers — typically 0-20cm and 20-50cm — representing the root zone relevant for most agricultural crops. Having data at multiple depths allows for differentiated analysis of topsoil versus subsoil characteristics that affect nutrient availability and water retention differently. The spatial resolution of 30 meters is fine enough to capture field-level variation within a single farm. A typical Nigerian smallholder farm of 1-5 hectares may span several 30m grid cells, allowing soil property maps to show intra-farm variability. Areas with different soil textures, pH levels, or organic matter contents within the same farm can be identified through iSDAsoil queries, providing the data foundation for variable-rate fertilizer application recommendations that optimize input efficiency. Soil pH is among the most important parameters for crop productivity. Many Nigerian soils in humid forest zones tend toward acidity, limiting nutrient availability even when fertilizers are applied. iSDAsoil's pH data at the field level allows advisory tools to identify farms where lime application would unlock existing soil nutrients and dramatically improve fertilizer use efficiency, without requiring each farmer to pay for individual soil tests. Soil organic carbon is a key indicator of soil health, water retention, and natural nutrient supply. iSDAsoil's organic carbon data for Nigerian farmlands helps agritech platforms identify degraded soils with low organic matter that would benefit from organic inputs, compost, or cover cropping, and track the general state of soil health across agricultural landscapes for conservation planning. For agritech companies building farm advisory apps in Nigeria, iSDAsoil provides an immediate soil intelligence layer that can be queried for any farm location at negligible cost compared to laboratory soil testing. Rather than advising all farmers with the same generic fertilizer recommendations, apps can use iSDAsoil data to differentiate advice based on the actual soil properties measured at the farm's specific location. Agricultural lenders and microfinance institutions providing input loans to Nigerian farmers can use iSDAsoil data as one input into crop potential assessment. Fields with better soil physical and chemical properties carry lower agronomic risk, which can inform loan sizing or interest rates for input finance products. Integrating soil intelligence into credit scoring models makes agricultural lending more data-driven and less reliant on manual field visits. The iSDAsoil REST API accepts latitude and longitude coordinates and returns soil property values for the queried location. Responses include values at each depth layer and uncertainty estimates reflecting model confidence at the queried point. Applications that display soil data to users can include these uncertainty bounds to communicate the confidence level of the estimates clearly.

NextYield by Ujuzi Kilimo is an agricultural data API that provides soil testing data, precision farming recommendations, and crop advisory services derived from Ujuzi Kilimo's soil intelligence platform focused on East and West Africa. Ujuzi Kilimo has built an extensive soil testing network and data model across African farming regions, and the NextYield API makes this data accessible to agritech developers building farm advisory platforms, digital extension services, and precision agriculture tools for African markets including Nigeria. The foundational insight behind Ujuzi Kilimo and NextYield is that African smallholder farmers make planting, fertilization, and management decisions with very little data about their specific soils and what those soils need. Generic fertilizer recommendations designed for average soil conditions are applied to fields with dramatically varying soil properties, resulting in either under-fertilization (crop underperformance) or over-fertilization (wasted inputs and cost). Soil-specific recommendations based on actual soil measurements dramatically improve fertilizer use efficiency and yields. Ujuzi Kilimo's soil testing program collects physical soil samples from African farms, analyzes them in certified laboratories for key parameters including pH, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, organic matter, and soil texture, and builds a spatially referenced database of soil properties across agricultural landscapes. NextYield APIs access this database plus derived recommendation models to provide crop-specific advice calibrated to the actual soil conditions at queried farm locations. Crop recommendations from NextYield are generated based on the intersection of soil properties, local climate data, and crop agronomic requirements. For a Nigerian farmer querying what inputs to apply to a specific field for a maize crop, NextYield can recommend fertilizer type, application rate, and timing based on the soil's measured nutrient levels and pH, rather than applying national average recommendations that may not reflect field reality. Yield prediction capabilities help Nigerian farmers and agricultural businesses plan harvests, optimize pre-sale agreements, and manage supply chain logistics. A farm advisory app that can tell a farmer their expected yield range for the current season based on soil quality, applied inputs, and weather helps that farmer make better decisions about storage, transport, and market timing. Agritech platforms in Nigeria focused on input sales optimization — whether direct-to-farmer apps or B2B agribusiness tools — can use NextYield to match specific fertilizer and soil amendment products to farm needs. Recommending the specific product and dose that the soil actually requires, rather than a generic NPK blend, improves outcome quality for farmers and builds trust in the advisory platform. For Nigerian agricultural lenders and microfinance institutions offering input credit, soil quality data from NextYield provides agronomic context for loan decisions. Farms with soil deficiencies that can be corrected with targeted inputs represent good lending candidates if the input recommendations are followed; farms with structural soil problems may warrant different loan structures or more intensive agronomic support. NextYield data is particularly relevant for Nigeria's fertilizer subsidy programs and agricultural input distribution systems. Government programs seeking to optimize subsidy allocation by directing the right inputs to farms that most need them can use soil intelligence to prioritize distribution based on demonstrated soil needs rather than administrative convenience. This data-driven approach to agricultural input programs improves the cost-effectiveness of government agricultural support spending.