Over
200,000 small holding farmers in 29 states of the country, cultivating
eight different commodities have gotten N43 billion so far disbursed by
the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under its Anchor Borrowers’ Programme
(ABP) which was launched in November 2015, Governor of CBN, Mr. Godwin
Emefiele, has disclosed....
According
to Emefiele, the ABP has so far achieved tremendous success in terms of
outreach and coverage, making it one of the most successful of CBN’s
development finance initiatives to date.
Speaking
yesterday in Abuja during the launch of the Presidential Initiative On
Agriculture and Youth Empowerment Programme at the CBN headquarters,
Emefiele said though the government was targeting an expanded job
generation from the scheme, rising from its initial target of 10,000
fresh jobs to 130,000 new jobs in each of the states.
“The
10,000 target per state is the very least. That is if the state is
lazy. Already, Jigawa has generated 56,000 jobs along the agriculture
value chain from this programme. So, we have looked at it and we know
130,000 new jobs can be generated in each of the 29 states that have
keyed into the scheme. It is new jobs and new initiatives. After
attaining food sufficiency, the next stage is export to increase our
foreign reserves.
“Currently,
the success of the programme has culminated in wealth creation for the
small holder farmers, who hitherto had been crowded out of the formal
financial system, deepening of markets and value addition along the
value chain of the various commodities.”
The
CBN boss further revealed that the National Food Security Programme
(NFSP) was initiated in November 2016 as a Public Private Partnership
(PPP) to complement the ABP by supporting large farms involved in
commercial capital intensive operations, to produce on a massive scale,
engage in value addition and shore up strategic grains reserve.
On
this he explained: “In June 2017, over 30,000 metric tonnes of grains
was purchased by the federal government from companies participating
under this program and distributed to Internally Displaced Persons
(IDPs) through the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). Given
this track record, I believe we are on the verge of something very
significant with the Accelerated Agricultural Development Scheme
(AADS).”
“This
scheme has been designed to create an ecosystem with the active
participation of both the public sector, state governments in this
regard and the involvement of the private sector.”
Similarly,
the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh,
reiterated earlier in his remarks that Nigeria has to produce what she
consumes and only import what cannot be produced locally.
“We
should not be a dumping ground for all goods. By doing that for many
years, we enriched other nations and imported poverty and our youths
have nowhere to go.
“If
Mr President did not launch the ABP on November 15, 2015, the rice and
wheat production we have today would not have come. In rice, we have
moved from five million metric tons to 17 million metric tons. We’re
getting all forms of mills. We now produce good quality rice.
“Our
population is estimated to hit 450 million by 2050 and that will be the
third largest population in the world. If we eat N3,000 worth of food
per person daily, multiply that by 450 million. It will give you
trillions in exchange of food daily. That’s a lot.
“We’re
spreading artificial insemination to increase milk production. We’ve
gotten back our universities of agriculture on track. So are our
colleges of agriculture. We have a lot to do in agriculture. We are
reforming the Bank of Agriculture.
“There’s
now a strong synergy between federal and state governments. The CBN
has the cash, states have the land. That is good synergy. Cosharis has
rice plantation and also going into cattle production. Imagine Kebbi
State that was called the poorest state five years ago, today many
millionaire rice farmers are there. It is all good for us.”
No comments: