FG Addresses Technical Hitches In Farmers Scheme

The Federal Government said on Monday that it would address all the technical hitches threatening the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) scheme.

Dr Charles Momo, the FCT Federal Director of Agriculture, stated this in an interview with newsmen in Abuja.

The GES scheme is a Federal Government initiative under the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA), aimed at susbsidising the cost of major agricultural inputs such as fertiliser and seeds.

Under the initiative, farmers access inputs through an electronic distribution channel known as the e-Wallet.

The conditions of the e-Wallet scheme stipulates that a farmer registered under the scheme, pays 50 per cent of the cost of farm inputs, while the federal and state governments pay 25 per cent each.

One of the requirements for the scheme is the farmers’ registration exercise, where farmers’ data are captured into the ministry’s central data bank.

Some farmers who registered within the metropolis had received an SMS alert to redeem their inputs at Abaji, a suburb of the FCT.

Also, some poultry farmers complained that they received alert to redeem fertiliser and seedlings instead of day-old chicks and poultry feeds.

The director said that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development had captured some of the challenges associated with the programme.

“We are aware of some of these problems and we are poised to solve them within the shortest period of time.

“For the farmer who registered in the metropolis and got an alert to redeem in Abaji; I will advise that the person go to Abaji to collect the inputs.”

According to him, some of the technical hitches can be as a result of the farmer not entering the correct data about himself.

He recalled that the Federal Government had introduced the Optical Mark Reading (OMR) forms early 2013 to address some of these problems. He added that farmers that are under the specialised value chain would soon receive another alert to redeem some other inputs for their farming.

Momo said that the redemption exercise had gone on smoothly in some of the redemption centres he visited.

“I have been to Tungan-maje and some of our staff went to Jikwoyi, Karshi and Lugbe, and the report has been that all is well, but we need to address one or two problems,” he said.