Press statement from the Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwumi Adesina
My attention has been drawn to the issue of 60 Billion Naira to be
spent on phones for farmers, reported in some media sites and papers.
The information is absolutely incorrect. My Permanent Secretary was
totally misquoted out of context. There is no 60 Billion Naira for
phones anywhere. As a responsible Minister, who takes public
accountability and probity very seriously, there is absolutely no way in
the world that I will even contemplate or approve such an expenditure.
All our focus as Government is on creating jobs in Nigeria, not
exporting jobs elsewhere.More after the cut.....
Let me clarify and explain our policy.
Reaching farmers through phones:
The
policy the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is
promoting is to get mobile phones to farmers, as part of its
agricultural transformation agenda, to connect farmers to information,
expand their access to markets, improve their access to savings and
loans, and help them adapt to climate change dynamics that affect them
and their livelihoods. We are also rapidly modernizing agriculture, and
have moved away from agriculture as a development program to agriculture
as a business, so we must modernize and use new tools to reach our
farmers.
The Power of information:
Agriculture today is more
knowledge-intensive and we will modernize the sector, and get younger
(graduate) entrepreneurs into the sector, and we will arm them with
modern information systems. Whether small, medium or large farmers they
all need information and communication systems. Connecting to
supermarkets and international markets require that farmers know and
meet stringent consumer-driven grades and standards. In today’s supply
chains, the flow of information from buyers to farmers must be instant,
to meet rapidly changing demands. Unless farmers have information at
their finger tips, they will lose out on market opportunities.
Our
goal is to empower every farmer. No farmer will be left behind. We will
reach them in their local languages and use mobile phones to trigger an
information revolution which will drive an agricultural revolution.
Why cell phones?
Nigeria
has 110 million cellphones, the largest in Africa. But there is a huge
divide: the bulk of the phones are in urban areas. The rural areas are
heavily excluded. For agriculture, which employs 70% of the population,
that means the farmers are excluded and marginalized. In today’s world,
the most powerful tool is a mobile phone. As Minister of Agriculture, I
want the entire rural space of Nigeria, and farmers, to be included, not
excluded, from advantages of mobile phone revolution.
Below are some of them:
Access to inputs:
First,
the mobile phones will be used to scale up the access of farmers to
improved seeds and fertilizers to millions of farmers, directly. The
federal government succeeded in 2012 in getting seeds and fertilizers to
farmers, via the Growth Enhancement Support (GES), which used mobile
phones to reach farmers with subsidized inputs. The system ended 40
years of corruption on fertilizers and cut off rent seekers and
middlemen who – for decades – have entrenched massive corruption of the
fertilizer sector. Government succeeded. The GES system reached over 1.2
million farmers in 120 days in 2012.
We succeeded because we
used mobile phones to reach farmers directly and cut off the middle men
and those who have cheated farmers for decades. We empowered the poor
farmers, with many getting subsidized seeds and fertilizers from
government for the first time ever. We brought transparency into what
was perhaps the most corrupt system in Nigeria. We ended fertilizer
corruption of four decades, in 90 days, because of mobile phone tools we
deployed.
Revolutionary tool:
This is a revolution. Nigeria
is the first country in Africa to develop such a system. The system has
garnered international acclaim. Other African countries now want to
learn from Nigeria. Major donors, including Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, DFID of the UK Government, USAID, World Bank, IFAD and the
Africa Development Bank, want to scale up the GES system to other
countries.
How we will operate:
From 2013, government intends
to distribute 10 million phones, so we can reach more millions of
farmers with the GES scheme for subsidized inputs. We expect to reach at
least 5 million farmers in 2013 with GES for access to subsidized
inputs. So, farmers who get mobile phones will be registered and we will
use their biometric information to reach them with electronic vouchers
for seeds and fertilizers.
Second, mobile phones will allow
farmers to have financial inclusion, as financial institutions such as
commercial banks and microfinance banks will be able to reach them with
affordable savings and loans products. The phones will make the
financial inclusion of the CBN in rural areas possible.
Third, the
phones will make market price information available to farmers
nationwide. Farmers lose a lot in marketing their produce. Middle men
make all the profits. Farmers end up selling their products at very poor
prices. This is because farmers do not have access to market price
information. There is asymmetry of market price information. For many
farmers their only sources of market price information are the
middlemen. Mobile phones will allow us to get market price information
to farmers, improve market access and empower farmers. This will allow
farmers to have countervailing power in the market place.
Fourth,
we will use mobile phones to provide extension information to farmers,
as part of our total overhaul of the extension system in the country.
With a “Farmer Help Line” it will be possible to connect extension
workers, colleges of agriculture, faculties of agriculture, and other
experts to provide free extension services to farmers by interactive
voice mail. This will include when to plant, what to plant, agronomic
practices etc. At the dial of a number, the wealth of knowlege of
experts will be connected to the farmers, anywhere they are in Nigeria –
free of charge. Such a “Farmer Help Line” system is already in use in
Kenya by poor farmers, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Fifth, the phones will allow
the dissemination of real time weather information to farmers. It will
be possible to alert farmers on drought or floods and reduce
vulnerabilities to shocks. In case of the floods we witnessed last year,
simple alerts over mobile phones would have saved many lives and helped
farmers to know what to do.
Finally, the expanded number of
phones in rural areas will support the expansion of rural telephony.
Presently, the rural areas are not being served well by mobile
operators, and are marginalized. With the expansion of mobile phones to
millions of farmers, mobile phone operators will expand the number of
base stations they have in rural areas. This will reduce the digital and
communications exclusion of rural areas, where agriculture is the main
source of income and jobs. The cost of calls in rural areas will also
decline.
How will this be financed?
The distribution of the
phones will be supported through an MoU signed between the Ministry of
Finance, Ministry of Communications Technology and the Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development, with the Ministry of Women Affairs.
Out of the 10 million phones, 5 million will go to women. The Universal
Service Provision Fund (USPF), which supports expansion of mobile
operators into rural areas, through a tax, will support this initiative,
in partnership with Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. We
intend to work with existing mobile operators in Nigeria through a
public-private partnership.
Dr. Akinwumi Adesina
I knew it was false. sounded ridiculous
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