Nigerian Government has announced plans to distribute 10 million free mobile phones to its farmers in 2013 in order to deliver fertilizer and seed subsidies to e-wallets on their phones. The e-wallet electronic system is being built by Kenyan software company Cellulant. Cellulant earlier this year won the four-year Sh745m for creat and manage the Nigerian e-wallet system. According to farmbizafrica.com:
The free phone distribution is part of an electronic wallet programme that has already benefited more than 300,000 Nigerian farmers. The government has also rolled out a farmer’s help line in each local government area delivering agricultural information, to further encourage improved agricultural production – as it moves to diversify the country’s economy away from its volatile oil revenues. In this, the government has given priority to achieving transparency in the distribution of subsidized fertilizer by ensuring there is no third-party interference. Fertilizer subsidy programmes have presented major challenges, everywhere, in stopping “leakage” and the sidelining of funds by entrenched cartels and middle men posing as farmers who then repackage the subsidised fertilizer and resell it at a higher price.
