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Originally Posted by hispy99
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"The minister said, “In the first year of the GES scheme, 1.2 million farmers received their subsidised fertilizers and seeds via their cell phones. We expect to have reached 1.5 million farmers by the end of the dry season."
The number of people receiving fertiliser (through their mobiles) has gone up from 232,000 to 1.2million and expects to hit 1.5 million soon. Obviously farmers are buying their own phones. Again, why not use them as a pilot scheme.
Let's address the realities on ground. We can reasonably assume most of the 10million farmers will be producing food crops. Which market price information will Bala access to determine the price of tomato at Iddo or Kano? Presumably, both willl be different. SO which will he use? Even if he could, how will he estimate the amount of tomato which never gets to market because of poor infrastructure (incidentally, one of the biggest problems confronting agriculture in developing nations). The same applies to Bitrus' potatoes. Doorshima, on the other hand, does not know if her soya beans will be exported or sold in the domestic market. Same applies to Nosa and his palm kernels. What will they do? Tunde's case is peculiar, he has always had access to cocoa prices on Nymex however, the big international producers (or Fairtrade producers) like Nestle won't buy directly from him. They will only buy from known middlemen who not only know the individual farmers but also perform first level QA for them.
We can extend this same logic to the meteorology services "to be provided". The more I look at it, the more it looks like a white elephant project. The opportunity cost is plainly too high.
For more, see a private sector led initiative
BBC News - How much will technology boom change Kenya?. As always, infrastructure is the problem. Why not address this?
Re: Feeding a great nation
hispy99
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