Nigeria’s Electronic – wallet (e – wallet) agriculture strategy continues to transform not just the Agricultural sector.
The adoption of the e-wallet across the country has been massive so far, impacting positively across a number of sectors particularly the telecom sector, according to Akinwunmi Adesina, Minister of Agriculture and Rural development.
Adesina stated this at the opening ceremony of the three-day Agra-innovate international conference and exhibition, held in Lagos last week.
The e-wallet system was deployed by the Agricultural and Rural development ministry in a bid to provide farmers with subsidized farm inputs using the mobile phone technology.
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“The e-wallet system has impacted massively on the telecommunications sector, as farmers invested in the purchase of 7 million handsets, adding N21 billion ($ 127 million) of devise sales, N3 – N6 billion ($18 – $36 million) of airtime sales and N116 billion ($700 million) of value to the market value of telecom companies”, he said.
The minister also spoke on the importance of private sector involvement in the agriculture industry.
“We want the private sector to drive agricultural growth. The private sector is the power engine of growth.
The impact of seed and fertilizer manufacturing companies in Nigeria has been massive. $5 million investment has been made in the fertilizer industry in Nigeria today coming from Dangote, Indorama and Notore,” the minister said.
“We have immense potential to become the food power-house, but potential is not enough; we must be able to unlock that potential.
Nigeria is known for its oil, but we have more potential than the oil and gas sector,” he added.
In a bid to reform the agricultural sector, the Federal government initiated the Agricultural Transformation (ATA) in 2011.
The ATA has changed the way agriculture is being looked at. It has made the sector a bit more investment focused. The Agricultural sector has become a wealth creating sector.
“Agriculture is all about making money, it is not just for the sustenance of food supply”, said Sani Dangote, Chairman, Nigeria Agribusiness Group, at the conference.
“We would improve the way we do business, to make sure the business environment is settled and make the youth more interested in agriculture,” Dangote added.
The minister also added that recent developments in the Agricultural sector have seen an increment in bank lending to the sector, increasing from 0.7 per cent to 5 per cent of banking industry portfolio.
“Nigeria is the first in Africa, in fact first in the world to develop the e-wallet system for reaching farmers with subsidised farm inputs and seed,” he added.
The seed companies in Nigeria rose from 5 in 2011 to 80 today and two of the world’s largest seed companies are located in Nigeria.
In the recently released Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Q3 report, Agricultural sector GDP grew by 9.19 per cent year to year in the third quarter of 2014.
The sector grew by 45.54 per cent from last quarter to date, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Crop production and livestock recorded the fastest growth rate with 52.83 per cent and 5.05 per cent respectively.
Crop production was the major driver of growth in the third quarter of 2014.
The contribution of the Agricultural sector to GDP was at 26.63 per cent in the third quarter of 2014, up from 20.89 per cent in the second quarter in 2014.
Josephine Okojie
