UPDATE ON 10million MOBILE PHONES FOR FARMERS : NO GOING BACK! The Farmers Need The Phones- Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, Minister of Agriculture

When the story of 10 million phones costing 60 billion naira for Nigerian farmers first made the headlines, I immediately put out a press release denying that the Ministry of Agriculture was planning to spend such a huge amount of money on cell phones. Since then, I have read several comments on the Internet and in the newspapers and I find that it is necessary for me to enlighten the public about what the ministry of agriculture has been doing to help our farmers. It is also important to explain why it is necessary for farmers to own cell phones and how we intend to finance our plan to distribute cell phones to them. When I came on board as minister of agriculture in July of 2011, I found a corrupt and totally inefficient fertilizer sector. The government was spending huge amounts of money on direct procurement and distribution of subsidized fertilizer, but less than 11% of farmers got the fertilizers. Some of the fertilizers paid for by government were never delivered to the warehouses. Some of the fertilizer delivered contained more sand than fertilizer while a large portion of the fertilizer subsidized by government found its way across our borders to neighboring countries where it was sold at prevailing market prices. Middle men and rent seekers were the ones benefiting from the billions of naira spent every year on fertilizer subsidies. The same applied to the seed sector. Middle men and briefcase contractors masquerading as seed companies were doing brisk business supplying seed to government. The problem was a large portion of the seeds being sold to government was grain bought on the open market corruptly sold as certified seed. It was clear to me that we needed to end this corrupt system if we are to have any hope at all of freeing Nigerian farmers from the shackles of rent seekers and opportunists who have for decades disempowered the farmers and hampered the growth of the sector. The more government was spending on fertilizer subsidies, the more rural poverty increased and the more agricultural productivity declined.


The system of direct government procurement and distribution of fertilizer led to massive leakages and in short, government was simply subsidizing corruption not farmers. A new system had to be found that would end this corruption by reaching legitimate farmers directly. The system needed to be one that would foster transparency and accountability. I am happy to say that we indeed developed such a system. With clear directive, support and determination from President Goodluck Jonathan, we ended four decades of corruption in the fertilizer sector within 90 days of my assumption of office as minister. How did we do this? We were able get subsidized high quality fertilizer and seeds to our rural farmers by introducing the GES (Growth Enhancement Support) scheme in April of 2012. The GES scheme delivers inputs (fertilizers and seeds) to farmers directly by using farmers' cell phones. We created an electronic platform (e-wallet) on which we registered farmers and agro dealers who own shops that sell farm inputs all over the country. To date we have registered 4.2 million farmers and about 900 agro dealers. We developed the first ever registered data base of farmers in Nigeria, which we will upgrade every year. For the first time ever, we can now base policy decisions on data, not guess work. We now know and can identify our customers, the farmers. Registered farmers are sent electronic vouchers directly from the federal government to their cell phones. This voucher or e-wallet informs the farmer that he or she is entitled to buy two 50kg bags of fertilizer at 50% of the purchase price. The voucher essentially serves as cash on their phones and this cash covers 50% of the market price of the fertilizer. The farmer therefore pays only 50% of the cost of the fertilizer to the fertilizer retailer. Fertilizer and seed retailers no longer supply seeds and fertilizers directly to government. They now sell directly to farmers. Government helps the farmer to buy inputs by providing direct support through their cellphones (e-wallet).

In the first year of the GES scheme, 1.2 million farmers received their subsidized fertilizers and seeds via their cell phones. We expect to have reached 1.5 million farmers by the end of the dry season. Let me say, that this singular effort to get inputs to farmers directly resulted in the addition of an estimated 8.1 million metric tons of food to the domestic food supply. This addition helped to mitigate the effect of the flood on the nation's food supply and we were able to avoid a food crisis. For the first time in Nigeria we can tell you the names, addresses and phone numbers of each farmer who received subsidized inputs from the government. The GES scheme provides us with a fair, equitable, accountable and transparent means of distributing farm inputs to our rural farmers. Similarly, for many years government was also directly procuring tractors for farmers. But just as it was with fertilizers, contractors bought old refurbished tractors instead of new tractors. These old tractors would work for a few months and thereafter would stop working and then be abandoned in all sorts of places because there were no spare parts to repair them with. We also ended the corruption associated with tractors. The federal government no longer buys nor distributes tractors. Plans are underway to use the GES scheme to help farmers access tractor hiring services. Instead of the government procuring tractors for farmers, the government is encouraging the private sector to establish tractor hiring centers. Farmers can hire tractors from these centers and the cost of hiring tractors will be subsidized by the government through the e-wallet using farmers' cellphones. Some people are asking questions like, "Why cellphones for farmers?" "Will the fertilizers and seeds be attached to the cellphones?" "Will tractors be attached to the cellphones"? As you can see from the above explanation the answer is "Yes!" It is actually the cell phone that has provided us with the tool to directly access each farmer thereby saving them from corrupt middlemen who make their fortune from exploiting the poor.