African Examiner
Saturday, January 05, 2013
Agric minister denies plans to spend N60b on cell phones for Farmers
The Nigeria?s Minster of Agriculture Dr Akinwunmi Adeshina has
denied a story credited to the permanent secretary that the ministry
will spend N60 billion on mobile phones for farmers in rural areas as
part of the government?s transformation agenda in the agricultural
sector.
The minister stated in a statement sent to African Examiner that the
story is false adding that his permanent secretary was ?misquoted
out of context.?
Dr. Adeshina further said ?there is no 60 billion naira for phones
anywhere? explaining that ministry is promoting to get cell phones
farmers to connect them to information needed to expand their
access to information and markets.
?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.? The minster
explained
The statement reads in full:
?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. 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 moble 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.?
?
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