New Telegraph

5,000 Plateau maize farmers benefit from CBN anchor borrowers’ programme

No fewer than 5,016 maize farmers in Plateau State have benefitted from the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for the 2020 wet season farming.
Head, Development and Finance Office of the Jos Branch of CBN,

Mrs Helen Temtsen, disclosed this at the flagging-off of the distribution of inputs to the beneficiaries in Mangu.

According to Temtsen, the programme, which began three years ago in the state, there were 339 beneficiaries in 2018 and 3,396 in 2019.
She said the programme was to improve local production and discourage importation at minimal interest rate.

Temtsen explained that for the 2020 edition, the programme would attract five per cent interest rate against the usual nine per cent, due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
“When this programme began in Plateau in 2018, 339 farmers maize farmers benefitted.

“In 2019, 3,386 benefited. For this year’s wet season, 5,016 farmers will benefit.

“In general, we have supported 18, 140 farmers in the state to improve the production of rice, maize, cotton and sorghum.

“For this year, the interest has gone down from nine per cent to five per cent, becuase of COVID-19,” she said.

The Jos Branch CBN Controller, Mr. Yusuf Duniya, warned the beneficiaries against diversion, saying anyone caught selling the inputs in the market would be delisted.

Duniya also advised the farmers to ensure timely repayment of the loan, insisting that the intervention was not a grant, but a loan with six months duration.

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