1.3m Farmers Get N205.8bn Anchor Borrowers’ Credit In 4yrs
UMORU ABDULKADIR.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said that a total of 1,277,362 smallholder farmers have received credit facility totaling N205,818,302 billion under its Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) since inception in 2015 across seventeen commodities.
According to the CBN, the commodities targeted under the programme include rice, cocoa, tomato, oil palm, wheat, cotton, soya beans, cassava, poultry, groundnuts, maize, fish, cattle, castor seed, sesame, sorghum and ginger.
The Governor of the CBN, Mr. Godwin Emiefele, stated that the choice of the commodities covered by the apex bank in ABP was driven by the huge amount spent on their importation and the attendant drain on the nation’s foreign reserves.
Emiefele said that the CBN was poised to boosting productivity, growth and employment through the provision of improved seedlings and to extend access to finance for rural farmers in the agricultural sector, which is capable of creating 10 million jobs within the next five years.
“In furtherance of these efforts, the Bank has also held series of engagements with agro-processors of these products in which they expressed commitment to install and expand their production capacities in Nigeria,” he said.
Launched in 2015, the ABP is geared towards supporting the growth of agriculture in line with the apex regulator’s developmental initiatives in order to create a linkage between small-holder farmers of key agricultural commodities and anchor companies involved in agro processing.
The intervention programme has yielded significant progress both in farmers’ participation and funds disbursed and it is expected that within the next five years will ensure the purchase of the outputs of farmers and strengthen the linkage between farmers and agro-processors/manufacturers.
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