They told newsmen in Lagos that due to poor implementation of the scheme, the country had lost 47 per cent of agriculture output, this year.
Mr Shedrack Madlion, the Executive Director of the Admiral Environmental Care Limited, an NGO, stressed the need to put in place checks and balances to ensure success of the initiative.
Madlion observed that the e-wallet scheme had only succeeded in arousing the farmers’ interest, but its implementation had fallen short of expectation.
``Radio and television jingles in different Nigerian languages should be used to sensitise farmers.
``Our roads are bad, the farmers, who are the target beneficiaries, are in the rural areas without any form of education.’’
In a separate interview, Mr Bolaji Alonge, a farm developer in Lagos, said that the scheme could only work effectively with good road network and efficient communication system.
According to him, the idea of farmers carrying little of no cash for the purchase of fertilisers and other farm input has not been achieved.
``The scheme is not favourable to the rural farmer, if you say farmers should not carry cash about and then there should be banks with good internet services in the villages where they dwell.
``There was no thorough research done before implementation; farmers were not properly educated on the new payment system for the farm inputs,” he said, adding that the initiative can only work in big cities and developed countries.
For Mr Akin Balogun, a maize farmer, he said that the scheme had made the purchase of fertilisers more difficult and urged the government to review its implementation.
You will recall that early this month, the Emir of Bauchi, Alhaji Riliwanu Adamu, had advised the Federal Government to review the scheme to enable farmers to benefit from it.
Adamu said he had received ``numerous'' complaints from farmers over the difficulty in accessing fertiliser and other inputs, especially people in the rural areas.
Reacting to the complaints in a telephone interview, Dr Kayode Oyeleye, the Special Assistant on Media to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, acknowledged inadequate awareness about the scheme.
``We did not do enough on enlightenment campaign and that is one area we are presently working on,'' he said.
He said that the scheme was part of the Federal Government's Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) introduced in July 2011.
Expressing confidence that the scheme would eventually yield fruits, Oyeleye advised farmers have their names registered in their respective local government areas.
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