New Telegraph

CBN: Agricultural commodities speculators’ll get their fingers burnt

Speculators in agricultural commodities, especially middle men in the rice market, who are hoping to cash in on widespread flooding in some parts of the country to jerk up prices, will get their fingers burnt, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has warned.

 

The Director, Development Finance Department, at the apex bank, Mr. Philip Yila Yusuf, stated this yesterday at the CBN-sponsored 2020 virtual seminar for Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN).

 

He stated that with harvesting underway, the price of rice was already falling in the rural areas, adding that Nigerians in urban areas would soon start to buy the commodity at reduced prices.

 

The Kebbi State Chairman of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria, Mohammed Sahabi, was recently reported by newsmen as saying that the recent flooding in the state has destroyed over 25per cent of Nigeria’s expected 8 million tons of rice harvests this year.

 

But, according to Yusuf, although there has been severe flooding this year, the impact on agricultural production in the country has been deliberately exaggerated in some quarters.

 

He said: “Middle men in the rice markets are going to get their fingers burned. I can tell you that harvesting has started and it is good. Prices have started coming down in the rural areas.” Responding to a question on preparations that the Department is making for dry season farming, Yusuf said that the CBN was targeting the cultivation of a minimum of one million hectares in the current dry season farming.

 

He said: “The only way we can guarantee food security in this country is to embark on large scale dry season farming.” He noted that but for the CBN’s intervention measures; the disruption in global supply chains, coupled with the protectionist stance adopted by several countries in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the nation could currently have been facing a serious challenge in the area of agricultural production.

 

Yusuf, who gave an overview of the CBN’s intervention programmes as well as its policy measures in response to COVID-19, disclosed that the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS) is one of the bank’s most successfully interventions in the agricultural sector.

 

He said that over N665.36 billion has so far been disbursed through the scheme and that over N400billion has been repaid. He revealed that 40 per cent of the CBN’s total intervention funds have so far gone into boosting the agric sector, followed by industry at 33 per cent and services at 27 per cent.

 

He also announced that the Targeted Credit Facility (TCF) introduced by the CBN as a stimulus package to support households and businesses affected by the pandemic has been increased from N50billion to N100billion, adding that N72billion of this amount has so far been disbursed to 118,911 beneficiaries.

 

In his keynote address, CBN Deputy Governor (Corporate Services), Mr. Edward Adamu, said that the theme of the seminar, “COVID-19 pandemic: Turning challenges into opportunity,” was apt, as it reflects the philosophy driving the regulator’s intervention programmes

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