By GABRIEL EWEPU

THE International Fertiliser Development Centre, IFDC, has further complemented the registration of farmers under the Federal Government’s Growth Enhancement Support Scheme, GES, with ‘GES Touch And Pay’, GES-TAP.

The FCT Coordinator, GES-TAP, Mr. Bisi Ilebani, said the organisation deemed it necessary to embark on the registration exercise of farmers in the FCT and Sokoto State, following complaints from farmers who could not access fertiliser and seeds under the GES.

According to Ilebani, IFDC had employed a sophisticated technology that makes it easier for smallholder farmers to have access to farm inputs and to weed out corrupt practices perpetrated by some persons who claim to be farmers, and also protect genuine farmers and agro-allied dealers, including banks that gave loan to agro-dealers.

Ilebani said: “In the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme, we noticed series of challenges, the major one was the issue of mobile networks in some villages. We were on the field and we saw all these challenges, where some agro-dealers could not get their money on time after the supply to farmers. As we looked at it we decided to introduce GES-TAP.

“The GES-TAP is a programme funded by DFID but implemented by IFDC, and was approved by the federal government. The way GESTAP works is the farmer is to come with the following means of identification, international passport, driver’s licence, old or new national I.D card, and voters’ card. At least 95 per cent of rural farmers will have INEC voters’ card.

“We have registered 106, 000 farmers in FCT, and since the government launched the GES such number of farmers had not been registered.

“We have 250 enumerators on the field across the FCT, and 25 supervisors. The enumerator at the registration centre request the farmer to provide his or her means of identification then the farmer is snapped with the ipad for his or her passport photograph, and also his or her information is captured, then a green electronic TAP card is being issued to the farmer.

“When the time for redemption comes the farmers will use the TAP card issued to him or her at the designated redemption centres to get their farm inputs and also make payments. We will suspend farmers found to be fraudulent.”

Ilebani said the challenge so far on the registration of the farmers in FCT was distance from some farmers to the registration centres, which IFDC through GES-TAP had proffered some sought of solution.

“The major challenge during this exercise had been the distance some farmers have to cover to get to the registration centres, and we feel worried about how can they be able to even redeem their inputs.