The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development,
Dr. Akinwumi Adesina has said that Nigeria is the first country in Africa to
develop the e-wallet for input delivery to farmers which in turn generated a total savings of N25 million in 2012 for the
federal government.
Adesina disclosed
this at the second EU-Nigeria Business Forum that was held in Lagos, and explained
the government was losing about N26.3 million annually to corruption before the
introduction of the e-wallet scheme for distribution of fertilisers and seedlings
to farmers.
NaijaAgro Net recalls from the
minister that the federal government decided to reach farmers directly using
mobile phones, which allow it to send farmers electronic vouchers to buy seeds
and fertilisers, created the first national data base for farmers with identity
cards and biometric information which allows the ministry to give their
information to banks to open up the financial space.
"There
is no reason why Nigeria is not self-sufficient in many of its food products
and our goals are to achieve 20 million metric tonnes of domestic food supply
by 2015, to create jobs and of course to create wealth,” Adesina said.
The Chairman of
the EU-Nigerian Business forum, Mr. Andre Ronne described the forum as an
exchange platform to consolidate,
leverage, improve, harness and deepen economic and business relations and
opportunities that between Nigeria and EU member states.
The Trade
Counselor for the EU trade delegation, Mr. Massimo De Luca said the Nigerian
market was important to the region as conference
was expected to create the enabler for viable engagements that will boost good
services, quality products and effective operations within the country and EU members’
states.
NaijaAgroNet
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pix: Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina
