The Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, yesterday said the Federal Government has not set aside any N60billion to buy phones for farmers in the country.

He said the phones-for-farmers scheme would be financed through the public-private partnership.
Adesina made these clarifications in a statement sent from the United States to media houses in Abuja

The statement said: “My attention has been drawn to the issue of N60billion to be spent on phones for farmers reported in some media sites and papers. The information is absolutely incorrect. My Permanent Secretary was totally misquoted out of context. There is no N60billion for phones anywhere. Let me clarify and explain our policy.

“The distribution of the phones will be supported through an MoU signed between the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Communications Technology and the Ministryof Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Women Affairs.

“Out of the 10 million phones, 5 million will go to women. The Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), which supports expansion of mobile operators into rural areas, through a tax, will support this initiative in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. We intend to work with existing mobile operators in Nigeria through a public-private partnership.

“Our goal is to empower every farmer. No farmer will be left behind. We will reach them in their local languages and use mobile phones to trigger an information revolution which will drive an agricultural revolution.

” Nigeria has 110 million cellphones, the largest in Africa. But there is a huge divide: the bulk of the phones are in urban areas. The rural areas are heavily excluded.

“For agriculture, which employs 70% of the population, that means the farmers are excluded and marginalized. In to day’s world, the most powerful tool is a mobile phone.

“As Minister of Agriculture, I want the entire rural space of Nigeria and farmers to beincluded, not excluded from advantages of mobile phonerevolution.”
Adesina explained why the ministry opted for the phones-for-farmers scheme.

The statement added: “The policy the Federal Ministry ofAgriculture and Rural Development is promoting is to get mobile phones to farmers as part of its agricultural transformation agenda to connect farmers to information, expand theiraccess to markets, improve their access to savings and loans and help them adapt to climate change dynamics that affect them and their livelihoods.

“We are also rapidly modernizing agriculture, and we have moved away from agriculture as a development programme toagriculture as a business, sowe must modernize and usenew tools to reach our farmers.

“Agriculture today is more knowledge-intensive and we will modernize the sector, and get younger (graduate) entrepreneurs into the sector, and we will arm them with modern information systems.

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