Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, the Minister for Agriculture has indicated again that the Federal Government will not be expending N60 billion on mobile phones for farmers, but rather government would assist the farmers who will also pay something out of pocket for the phones.
He disclosed this at a breakfast meeting for Editors in Lagos. The Minister said fertilizer distribution which was the most corrupt industry in Nigeria was cleansed through the integration of technology (mobile phones) in the process.
He said, “In the country, we are trying to change the sector from being developmental to business. We are targeting 20 million metric tonnes of food by 2015 and create 3.5 million jobs. For it to be a business, government must play a catalytic role but must not dominate the space. We have to let the private sector drive the space but must be government-enabled.
“Let us take fertilizer distribution for example. For four decades, government was buying fertilizer but only 11 per cent of farmers got it. I have been following this since 1984. I did my Masters degree in USA monitoring fertilizer corruption. Rural poverty was rising as government expenditure on fertilizer was rising. We ended the corruption in fertilizer distribution in 90 days. We stopped government from buying and selling fertilizer Half of the fertilizer they used to supply was sand, quality very low which made it injurious to the plants. In fact, the sector was the most corrupt in the country.
“When we came on board, we developed a comprehensive data for farmers, sent mobile phones to them, no politician was involved and in 120 days, we reached 1.2 million farmers with qualitative fertilizer.”
The minister alluded to the fact that distributing more mobile phones to farmers would boost the green revolution in the country, as, according to him, 71% of the farmers in the country do not own mobile phones.