What’s happening to Adesina’s electronic wallet system?

Several attempts have been made over the years to boost farmers’ productivity. Among these, is the effort to boost productivity through the supply of farm inputs such as improved seeds, agrochemicals and fertilizers at subsidized rates. However, a large proportion of these inputs never reached farmers because of high level of corruption, insincerity and political interruption in the distribution channels.

The Federal Government had always made efforts to boost agricultural outputs in the country but these efforts had not been directly channeled to beneficiaries because of the middlemen in the distribution of process.

Recognising the need to extricate the middlemen and make the process of distribution direct from government to the farmers, the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) and the use of the Electronic –wallet system, were introduced by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

In 2012, the former Minister of Agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, oversaw the introduction of the Electronic Wallet (“e-wallet”) system through which subsidised electronic vouchers for inputs were delivered directly to farmers’ mobile phones and then the vouchers were used to directly purchase inputs from agro-dealers.

E-Wallet is the engine room of the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GESS). It has been one of the most effective and innovative uses of mobile technology in recent years in the delivery of government services.

The system ensures that farmers get regular updates on their mobile phones as to when and where to pick up subsidised fertilizer and other inputs. In two years, the scheme reached 5 million farmers while also enhancing food security for 25 million persons in rural farm households.

Nigeria is the first in Africa and in the world to develop the e-wallet system, through which farm inputs are delivered directly to farmers via electronic vouchers on their mobile phones. Decades of corruption in the distribution of fertilizers to farmers were cleaned by the e-wallet.

The number of seed companies in Nigeria rose from 5 in 2011 to over 80 today with two of the world’s largest seed companies operating in the country with increase in the number of investments.

Over $10.6 billion of investments in Nigeria’s petrochemical and fertilizer plants in the country since the adoption of the e-wallet system, according to Industry Watchers.

BusinessDay spoke with farmers who participated in the GES scheme. According to the farmers, the last time they used the e-wallet system was in 2014 and since then, nothing has happened on the platform.

“We normally used to receive text messages on our mobile phones that tells us were to get fertilizers and seeds and the quantities directly from the companies. We got the message last since 2014,” said Abiodun Olorundenro, chief executive officer, Green Vine Farms.

“Since the Buhari government took over, they have been silent about the e-wallet system. Though, they told us they would review the procedure of the e-wallet. But up till now, we have not heard anything,” Olorundenro said.

Some analysts say the silence is due to the debt the ministry owes seed and fertilizers companies that used the platform to sell and distribute inputs to farmers.

However, the supervisory Ministry of Agriculture has attributed the debt to the dwindling fortunes of the Federal Government occasioned by the fall in oil price at the international market.

The recent change in government has also been fingered as another reason for the debt as the Muhammadu Buhari government needs time to settle down before effecting payments.

“The agro-allied contractors are being owned N37 billion due to the general elections the nation conducted in 2015 and the change in government, along with shortfall in the nation’s revenue is responsible for the delay,” said Kayode Oyeleye, special adviser to Audu Ogbeh, Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Since the introduction of the system, it has impacted massively on other sectors especially the telecoms sector.

“The e-wallet system has impacted massively on the telecoms sector as farmers invested in the purchase of seven million handsets, adding N21 billion ($ 127 million) of devise sales, N3-6 billion ($ 18 – $ 36 million) of airtime sales and N116 billion ($700 million) of value to the market value of telecom companies,” said Akinwumi Adesina, former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, during the 2014 Agra Innovate International conference and Exhibition.

Despite the success recorded by the scheme, some farmers complained that they did not benefit from the scheme as the farmers complained about the quality of the seeds they were given. They pleaded with the new government to correct these errors of the previous administration and make it better, which in turn will make more farmers register under the support scheme.

“The new government should improve on the scheme by ensuring that these agro-allied contractors distribute good and quality seedlings to farmers,” Olorundero added.

The farmers also complained that they were not given enough quantity of seedlings and that the seeds were given to all farmers, including those who didn’t need it such as fish farmers.

The International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) in its 2013 report states that the average usage of fertilizer in Nigeria is 13kg/hectare while the mean time rest of the world average annual usage is 100kg/hectare.

Despite low fertiliser usage, less than ten percent of farmers in the country could not access improved quality seeds. The agricultural research institutes that are supposed to come-up with technologies that would boost farmers’ outputs have been marred with corruption, poor funding and total neglect.

“We have a total of 13,000 staffs and 90 percent of the yearly budgetary allocation for agric research institutes goes into salaries and emoluments. Only 10 percent goes into research. This is why the institutes have not been able to improve farmers output,” said Baba Yusuf Abubakar, executive secretary, Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN) in a telephone interview with BusinessDay. 

While the government’s efforts to boost food supply by 20 million metric tons from 2011 to 2015 has seen the country’s food import bill drop by more than half to $5 billion from $11 billion two years earlier, a drop in agriculture output is likely, as analyst say that farmers inability to access farm inputs will affect their productivity and output.

According to the Economists, African government should take advantage of mobile technology since most cities in the continent are swelling and the people that live in them are craving for meat and processed food.

In the recently released Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Q4 report, Agriculture real GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2015 stood at 3.5 percent (year-on-year), a decrease of 0.2 percent points from the corresponding period of 2014, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Growth in the sector was driven by output in Crop Production accounting for 87 percent of overall growth of the sector.

JOSEPHINE OKOJIE