Effectiveness of e-wallet practice in grassroots agricultural services delivery in Nigeria-A case study of Kwara State growth enhancement support scheme

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This study assesses the effectiveness of the usages of mobile phone-based innovations to reaching small
scale farmers in Nigeria using Kwara State growth enhancement support scheme as a case study. Two
hundred farmers were randomly selected from four local government areas in the state. A structured
interview schedule was used for eliciting information from them. The study revealed that 53.5, 51.0 &
87.2 percents of the respondents’ respectively benefited from improved seeds of maize, rice and two
bags of fertilizers each. Other benefits of the program included quick accessibility of improved and
subsidized farm inputs, increased production and resuscitation of farmer’s confidence in government
programs. The shortcomings of the program, however, include telephony network failure, low level of
awareness among farmers, cumbersome procedure of getting approval from cellulants, low density
coverage of agro-dealers, and supply of fertilizer and maize seeds. To enhance grassroots farmers’
productive capacity, the study recommends a grassroots e-wallet awareness campaign, improvement of
rural telephony networking for improved interconnectivity between helpline staff and cellulants, and the
scaling up the quantity of input supply by the government to accelerate and increase the production
capacity of the farmers

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Related Faculties/Schools

• Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences