In recent times, the phenomenal increase in the population of people and livestock in the world has placed an enormous pressure on water and land resources used by both crop farmers and herders alike. Desertification, deforestation and uncertainties in climatic conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa have led to massive movements of herders in search of pasture with resultant conflicts with local farm communities in the region. The inability to find a lasting solution to these problems has led to persistent cases of deteriorating relationships amongst crop farmers and herders which has continued to precipitate hostile consequences including the loss of lives, interruption and annihilation of the family units and in some cases, whole communities are destroyed. This research attempts to address the problem of inadequate grazing resources by the use of advances in Computational Intelligence Techniques in the determination of the optimum maturity of maize, so as to complement for the grazing of livestock in the region. Although the challenge inherent in determining the optimum maturity of maize is by no means trivial, the practice was hitherto based on human perception, which is a function of experience over time. This paper leverages on the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) interfaced with image processing and Convolutional Neural Networks (pre-trained ResNet50 Network) in determining the optimum ripeness of the maize crop grown in Sub-Saharan Africa. Results obtained indicated a 3.5% improvement classification accuracy of pre-trained ResNet50 over ANN model, providing a stimulus for further research on the subject area. Therefore, this research posits that farmers could be sensitized on the possibility of utilizing image processing and neural networks technique in the determination of the maturity of maize in the nearest future when made operational.