Business
…Commences Farmers Registration In S’East
The Federal Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development says the registration of farmers in the southern states of the country will commence by the first week of March.
The Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mrs Ibukun Odusote, announced this recently in Enugu during a stakeholders meeting on the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GES) for the Southern States.
The GES is the flagship programme of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda under which registered farmers receive fertiliser and seeds through an electronic system known as the e-wallet.
The farmer pays half the price of the input while the state and federal governments pay the balance.
Odusote, represented by the South East Coordinator of the scheme, Dr Uche Nwafor, said the exercise was aimed at accommodating farmers who did not participate in the previous registration in the country.
According to her, the meeting was organised to sensitise farmers on the GES and inform them of the roll-out date in order to increase the number of benefitting farmers.
She said that the ministry would partner with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to capture the biometrics of farmers and bring them into the country’s financial system.
The permanent secretary said that the ministry registered 10.5 million farmers nationwide in 2013.
Odusote said that 5.28 million farmers received subsidised inputs under the generic GES while 272,798 farmers accessed inputs under the Specialised Value Chains.
According to her, the figure did not include farmers who benefitted under the aquaculture and livestock sub-sectors which came into the scheme in the 2013 season.
“This system has worked successfully in the last two years. It is on record that for the first time ever in Nigeria, we can actually tell you which farmer received which input, when they did, how much they paid and how much government paid,’’ she said.
In his remarks, Mr Mike Eneh, the Enugu State Commissioner for Agriculture who doubled as the Chairman of the occasion, said the state government was restructuring itsagriculture policy to be in line with that of the Federal government and donor- funded projects.
Eneh said that the state would harness its abundant natural resources to grow the agriculture sector through an efficient, competitive, sustainable, and export-led sector.
The commissioner said that this measure would ensure growth, food security, increased income and generate employment for the youths.
“This is why we are here to support this programme and eliminate traces of corruption in the system as we witnessed with the previous fertiliser distribution and procurement programmes.’’
He noted that the programme was good but identified challenges hindering effective implementation to mixtures of names of farmers, omissions, wrong spellings, late arrival of inputs, distant location of redemption centres and climate change.
He challenged the participants to device strategies to mitigate the challenges.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports commissioners for agriculture from Edo, Delta, Imo and Ebonyi as well as farmers association, bankers and other stakeholders in the agriculture sector attended the meeting.
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.
