New Telegraph

Stakeholders link ABP to agric sector’s success

The President, Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria (CFAN), Mr Adeola Adegoke, has said that the 2020/2021 loans given to some cocoa farmers in the country via the apex bank’s Anchor Borrowers’ Programme helped boost productivity by at least 10 per cent, with some increasing their produce from 30 to 40 bags of cocoa beans. Adegoke added that beneficiaries also diversified the base of their incomes by planting other crops and adding animal and fish production through the facilities. He said, hopefully, more farmers would get loans from the ABP scheme before the cocoa planting and maintenance season begins.

The CFAN president explained that even though the country’s agric sector is facing straits amid insecurity and other forms of criminality, local farmers could testify that the ABP scheme rescued the country’s food basket from its slumps. Adegoke, however, said there were some challenges confronting some farmers, such as fire outbreaks, herders’ destruction of farms and impacts of climate change of farmers. Despite these challenges, loan repayment has been very encouraging, and the association had been sensitising beneficiaries to rev up repayment.

The newly confirmed All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) National President, Mudi Farouk, in his speech at the occasion, stated that agriculture was now contributing three times more to the country’s GDP than oil. He said the reason for this was the apex bank’s huge agricultural interventions in the Nigerian economy.

This agric interventions, according to him, has helped to change the status of local farmers in the country. While evaluating the impacts of the ABP scheme, the AFAN national president said the core of the programme was to provide loans (in kind and cash) to smallholder farmers to boost agricultural production, create jobs and reduce food import bill towards conservation of foreign reserve. Farouk added the programme evolved from consultations with stakeholders, including the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, state governments, agro-processors, commodity associations, financial institutions and smallholder farmers to ramp up agricultural production, boost non-oil exports and diversify the revenue base of Nigeria. However, he pointed out that this loan scheme had resulted to the impact on productivity of farmers, availability of industrial raw material and perhaps exports currently in the country’s agric sector. A key representative of the Flour Millers Association of Nigeria (FMAN), Dr. Oluwasina Olabanji, while speaking on the overview of wheat production in Nigeria and ABP’s impacts, said seeds and input challenges were being addressed by CBN (providing quality seeds from Mexico) and FMAN was commitment to off take all wheat grains produced by farmers. Olabanji assured Nigerians that the journey to wheat selfsufficiency had begun in Nigeria and would be sustained with the political will of Nigerian government and various initiatives from FMAN and CBN. Also commenting at the event, the Vice President, Olam Agric, Reji George, said the scheme was capable of producing more crops for food and industrial uses. He said efforts of his firm and out-growers to participate in the 2020/2021 season failed because the company had given our inputs to out-growers before the ABP inputs were ready. “But, this year, we cannot do it because irrigation facilities in Kano and Jigawa are closed down for repairs. We are willing to participate,” he said. “The joint venture has 1,900 out-growers cultivating tomato with off-take agreements. 1000 farmers are in Jigawa and they cultivate 1000 hectares, with others in Bauchi and many other locations too,” he said.

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