The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (FMAFS), in collaboration with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), has unveiled the National Identity Number (NIN)-enabled farmer registry and Government-to-People (G2P) card initiative.
This was disclosed on Thursday in a statement jointly signed by the Director of Information at the FAMFS and the Head of Corporate Communications at NIMC, Kayode Adegoke.
According to the statement, the innovative project aims to streamline service delivery, enhance transparency, and improve inclusivity as part of the government’s commitment to food security under President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
Tackling identity challenges in agriculture
The initiative seeks to address identity and authentication challenges that hinder the effective delivery of government programs to targeted beneficiaries in the agriculture sector.
- By leveraging the National Identity Management System, the FMAFS will integrate farmers’ NIN-linked biometric data into its farmer registry.
- This data will include detailed information such as farmland size, crop or livestock type, and other relevant agricultural metrics.
“Connecting this NIN-backed registry to the G2P card will thereby allow for provision of targeted and ring-fenced aid to the farmers and other recipients of government benefits under the FMAFS programs,” the statement read in part.
The G2P Card initiative
According to the statement, the G2P card ecosystem is an initiative that allows for the issuance of NIN-enabled cards by Federal Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAS), and enables the use of the card’s frontend by these MDAs for their respective programs.
- The key feature of the ecosystem is a biometrics card with multiple wallets that can provide verifiable identification and also process transactions without internet connectivity, allowing the Ministry to support beneficiaries in the most remote locations.
- The card is unique to each citizen, and every Nigerian and legal resident is eligible to obtain it, banked or unbanked.
- The G2P card will be owned by and personalized to each MDA that adopts its usage.
“By adopting this card, FMAFS is able to uniquely identify all farmers, provide multiple agriculture services through the card in a manner that eliminates risks and fraud, and also provide end-to-end visibility within the agriculture value chain thus enabling scalability.
“Agriculture services to be provided through the card include farmer financing, input distribution, farmland mapping linked to identity, extension services monitoring & evaluation, and agency banking as well as multiple types of third party services,” it added.
Within this framework, NIMC will provide the foundational identity ecosystem to FMAFS, who as the owner of both the farmer registry and G2P card scheme will provide government services via the issued G2P cards, tailored to the needs of the farmers supported by the Ministry at the national and sub-national levels.
Other features of the card
The G2P card has a large capacity in-card chip that stores beneficiary identity, know your customer (KYC), picture, and fingerprints.
In addition, it has two applets and several wallets dedicated to multiple types of programs, which provides needed flexibility and channels for multiple interventions to be implemented against the same unique identity.
- This flexibility is required to address infrastructure challenges limiting identity verification and digital evidence of beneficiary access when implementing government programs.
- The G2P biometric cards are processed through a bespoke but interoperable biometrics Point of Sale (POS) acceptance device, which requires biometrics to access and operate.
- This technological approach allows the Ministry to better deliver services and programs in any location regardless of infrastructure challenges.
- The card will operate as a digital wallet/ prepaid card and it is tailored for government transactions such as subsidies, loans, welfare disbursement, pensions and other activities carried out by FMAFS.
What you should know
Aside from the G2P card initiative, NIMC is also planning to roll out a general multipurpose ID card powered by a Nigerian card company, AFRIGO.
According to the federal government, the issuance of this card which serves dual purposes of identification and financial transactions is one of the key policies that will shape the country in 2025.
