THE catalogue of financial scams rocking the nation’s economy, may have found a disturbing expression in the nation’s agriculture sector, as about N776 billion has been allegedly stolen from the N873 billion released for fertilizer subsidy between 1980 and 2010.

The Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, made the disclosure Tuesday, at Ikogosi Resort Centre, Ikogosi, Ekiti State, during the Agbeloba AgriBusiness Forum 2013 organised by the state government.

Indeed, the minister pointed out that the looting, which details were not made available, contributed immensely to the development inertia in the country’s agriculture sector.

Adesina, who was represented by the Director of Rural Development in the Ministry, Alhaji Azeez Olumuyiwa, said it was discovered that only 11 percent of farmers in the country had access to the distribution of the product.

The Minister, however, said this has changed because of the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan, which now ensures direct distribution of fertilizers and other farm implements to the farmers through e-wallets.

He said: “In 2012, 1.5 million smallholder farmers got their

subsidized seeds and fertilizers using their mobile phones. This had

an impact on 7.5 million persons. So far this year, over 3.5 million farmers have received their subsidized inputs via electronic wallet scheme. The system saved the country about N25 billion in 2012.

Speaking at the event, Ekiti State governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, revealed his government’s intention to facilitate investment worth $500 million for the building of agricultural processing plants in the state.

He said the government is partnering with the private sector and the academia in facilitating investments in processing equipment and facilities to establish cassava, broiler and fish processing facilities in Ekiti.

Fayemi stated that the proposed facilities, which he said would create

a big agro-allied market in Ekiti, would complement over $300 million

investment his government has brought to Ekiti State through partnership with private sector and international organizations.

Present at the two-day forum were Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, his Osun counterpart, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, and Commissioner for Agriculture in Ekiti, Babajide Arowosafe among others.

Fayemi posited that the giant strides of his government in Agriculture sector, particularly the Youth in Commercial Agriculture programme , was targeted at making Ekiti the food basket of the nation and enhance food security.

He said: “The deal with Dutch Agriculture Development and Trading

Company will bring a new dimension to this, that is the processing and sales of cassava cake and eventual setting up of one of the biggest cassava Mills in Ekiti State and hundreds of youths are involved in this commercial endeavour and about 10,000 persons engaged along the value chains

“We appreciate that food security challenges abound across many domains in Nigeria and Africa, due to complex interplay of ageing farm hands , declining farm productivity from largely subsistence farm holdings and archaic farm practices.

“As many will notice, we have recently resolved to retool and refocus the operations of these three systems to directly support real farmers and not political farmers”.

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