FEDERAL GOVT. IS INSISTING FARMERS NEED CELLPHONES

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina

Na wa o. The Federal Government is still insisting farmers actually need the communication equipment. The Federal Government planned  to provide 10 million farmers in the country with cell phones which I heard might cost the Federal Government N60bn.

The Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, made the government’s position known at a news briefing at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. According to him, the move is to “rebuild the broken walls of Nigeria’s agriculture and unlock wealth and opportunities for our farmers.” 

Really? Achieving all that with a cellphone? Even the farmers involved have told the government that cellphone is not their problem.

Read how he said the cellphone is supposed to help the farmers after the cut....

Adesina said that with clear directive and support from President Goodluck Jonathan, his ministry ended four decades of corruption in the fertilizer sector within 90 days of his assumption of office as minister and this was achieved by getting subsidised high quality fertilizer and seeds to rural farmers through the introduction of the Growth Enhancement Support scheme in April 2012. He said the GES scheme delivered inputs to farmers directly by using their cell phones.

The minister said, “In the first year of the GES scheme, 1.2 million farmers received their subsidised 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 tonnes of food to the domestic food supply.”