Technocrat Media, Accra
Akinwunmi Adesina, President of African Development Bank says the bank is ready to help Nigeria relaunch an electronic wallet system of farm input distribution to boost agricultural production.
Dr Adesina said this on Monday in Accra, Ghana at a meeting with newsmen ahead of the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Bank.
The e-wallet system was introduced by Adesina, while he was the Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria.
During the administration of Goodluck Jonathan, the electronic system allowed the federal government to register about 14.5 million farmers and reached them directly with inputs, notably seeds and fertilizers, via electronic coupons on their mobile phones.
The AfDB boss, the Bank would support Nigeria with about 30 million dollars reallocated fund to be used for an emergency food plan to produce in the dry season.
“Nigeria needs to go back and use the electronic wallet system that I developed when I was a minister to get fertilizers straight to farmers and cut out all the middlemen.
“We are going to help the government to do that because when farmers have quality seeds and fertilizers, they can rapidly triple food production,” he said.
According to him, Nigeria will also benefit significantly from the African Emergency Food Production Plan.
“In Nigeria, we have provided 540 million dollars for special agro-industrial processing zones in seven states including the Federal Capital Territory.
“That will allow Nigeria to have special zones where you can have agro-processing value addition and increased competitiveness of agriculture.
“We are not alone, we put in 170 million dollars and others put in money such as the Islamic Development Bank and other partners,’’ he said.
The theme of the meetings is “Fostering Climate Resilience and a Just Energy Transition for Africa’’.
(NAN)
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