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. Continue after the cut...
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 fingertips,
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
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