Following the tweet made by the Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Audu Ogbeh on 17th.Jan 2018…..
It will interest you to know that nearly 50 million smallholder farmers in Africa are struggling to support their families and communities through agri-business because less than 10% have their economic needs met by the financial sector. Without access to credit, they remain unable to purchase quality inputs, make productive investments, and improve their production and harvests.
The Nigeria Agricultural sector employs nearly 70% of the population and contributes nearly 22% of GDP. However two years ago the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) approved the disbursement of about N75billion as loan to farmers in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) under the Nigerian Incentive-Based Risk Sharing in Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL).
It therefore remains imperative for the Federal Government to use the “FarmDrive app” as a tool to implement the above goal for 2018.
The FarmDrive app developed in 2014 by Rita Kimani and Peris Bosire in Kenya has built an innovative solution that provides “detailed risk profiles of small holder farmers to financial institutions.” The FarmDrive App uses mobile phones, alternative data and machine learning to close the critical data gap that prevents financial institutions from lending to creditworthy small holder farmers.
The FarmDrive App is turning around the Agricultural sector in Africa. As a lot of African Nations are using it officially, especially East-African Nations.
With the FarmDrive application, the following factors can be put under control:
Fraudulent FGN Agricultural loan,
Wrong record keeping of sales, absence of accurate and cost-effective methods for assessing smallscale agricultural lending risk etc.
This will in turn improve access to credit for farmers to boost production and the livelihoods of entire communities thereby alleviating poverty, hunger and inequalities.
This app is not open to Nigerians but the government can seek approval for it or get a locally made one especially when we have the expertise here in Nigeria.
