N432bn Loan For 1.1m Farmers In 2020 Planting Season
AMINA HUSSAINI, Abuja
About 1.1 million farmers in Nine commodities’ categories are to benefit from a N432 billion interest-free loan that is guaranteed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to fund the cultivation of one million hectares of farmlands in the current 2020 planting season.
The apex bank plans to roll out the facilities through some banks in a scheme that will also fund the value chain of the commodities in a set of plans for which a framework for the integration of non-interest window in all its intervention programmes will soon be released.
CBN intervention programmes are the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) and the Targeted Credit Facility (TCF) to support households and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stakeholders in the agriculture sector including the Presidents of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) – Alhaji Aminu Goronyo; National Cotton Association of Nigeria (NACOTAN) – Anibe Achimugu; Maize Association of Nigeria (MAN); Maize Association of Nigeria (MAAN) – Bello Abubakar; and the Maize Growers, Processors, and Marketers Association of Nigeria (MAGPMAN) – Edwin Uche were hinted of the plans on Thursday at a meeting where they attested that the ABP has enhanced the value chains of their respective commodities.
At the meeting also were the Bank’s Director, Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor and Yila Yusuf, the Director, Development Finance Department, who jointly represented the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele where the ABP and the strategies for the 2020 agricultural wet season were discussed.
Okorafor said the creation of the non-interest loan followed appeals by concerned stakeholders for farmers across the country to also be considered for funding under the window.
The apex bank has concluded on the funding document and the policy, outlining how farmers under the category could apply and benefit from the agricultural programmes will be issued shortly, according to Okorafor
“In the 2020 agricultural wet season, the CBN is committed to aggressively fund its agricultural programmes and spur farmers along, select crop value chains to prevent the country from sliding into a recession, as is currently being experienced in some major economies of the world.
The idea behind the Targeted Credit Facility (TCF) of the Bank is to alleviate the impact of the coronavirus on individuals and small businesses to push the economy and ensure Nigeria does not experience consecutive quarters of negative growth.
Consequently, the Governor, Mr Emefiele, had directed the Development Finance Department of the Bank as well as the NIRSAL Micro-Finance Bank (NMFB) to fast-track the approval process of loans, which he stressed were to help restore businesses and livelihoods.
The Director, Development Finance Department of CBN, Yila Yusuf, said the target for the 2020 agricultural wet season was to produce a collective output of 8.3 million metric tons.
Yusuf notes the focus for the 2020 wet season is to ensure the provision of improved seeds to incentivize the farmers to return to their farms while CBN adopts the value chain approach across all the commodities to ensure that every player along the entire value chain, from the farmers through to the processors, was financed.
He said the Bank’s funding of the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) for the 2020 season was the highest since the inception of the programme in 2015, adding that this was quite significant considering the successes recorded in the 2019 season that contributed to shielding Nigeria from any food shortage, particularly rice, in the heat of the global lockdown during which some major producing countries of staples, such as rice, closed their silos and halted the export of those produce from the shores of their respective countries.
Comments are closed.