Federal Government Targets Digital Cooperatives to Unlock Capital, for Smallholder Farmers

The Federal Government has commenced the digital transformation of Nigeria’s cooperative sector as part of efforts to improve smallholder farmers’ access to capital, agricultural inputs, markets and other economic opportunities.

The Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security and Supervising Minister for Cooperative Affairs, Sen. Dr. Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja at the National Technical Workshop on Cooperative Sector Digitalisation under the Renewed Hope Cooperative Reform and Revamp Programme (RH-CRRP 2030).

Abdullahi said the digitalisation of cooperatives would strengthen the capacity of farmer groups to access finance and government interventions, while providing the data needed to drive more effective agricultural planning and investment.

He said Nigeria could not fully realise the economic potential of its cooperative movement without addressing challenges relating to access to finance, market access, institutional capacity, inclusion, partnerships and reliable data.

According to him, cooperatives have a significant role to play in advancing food security, job creation and shared prosperity, but their contribution could be constrained without a modern system for identifying and verifying cooperative organisations and their members.