CBN INSTITUTES ALMANAC, AWARD FOR BEST FOOD PRODUCTION FARMERS
By Favour Nnabugwu & Caleb Ayansina The Central Bank of Nigeria has set in motion plans to institute an almanac and awards for best food-producing farmers across the country, following recent list of 1,000 top farmers to be granted agricultural loans to boost food security in the country.
Mr Alex Oti, Managing Director of Diamond Bank in Abuja said the names and addresses of the shortlisted farmers have already been circulated to all the banks, preparatory to having them provide support efforts towards increased food production. Otti said that the banking industry would institute an Almanac for the farmers and also organise an Award for best food-producing farmers.
Agriculture is a major contributor to Nigeria's GDP and small-scale farmers play a dominant role in this contribution but their productivity and growth are hindered by limited access to credit facilities. Credit institutions such as the commercial banks, microfinance banks, the Nigeria Agricultural and Cooperative Rural Development Bank (NACRDB), state government-owned credit institutions; cooperative societies and money lenders, demand for impossible collateral from farmers which often hinder their access to credit facilities.
Out of the 150million population of the country, only about 23 per cent of the adult is said to have access to formal financial institutions, 24 per cent to informal financial services, while 53 per cent are financially excluded including the farmers.
More so, it is estimated that only 2.5 per cent of total commercial bank loans and advances is directed at agriculture. This is said to be due to lack of bank accounts, collateral, and information regarding the procedure for accessing credits from banks which limit farmers' access to credit from formal institutions.
Professor Sheikh Abdullah, Minister of Agriculture confirmed this in an interview with Vanguard in Abuja. 'A farmer based in the village who does not have access to land is being requested to present a land document in Abuja. Those requirements are a source of discouragement and delay to accessing the fund. What is important is the need for the financial system to transform and take agriculture as a partner and as necessary investment. There must be a necessary portfolio,' he said.
On the N200 billion agricultural loan to farmers, the minister said: 'The fund is N200bn but the draw down is certainly over N150bn. The fund is largely managed by the financial institutions and the submission of the Central Bank of Nigeria recently indicated that over N150bn had already been dispersed.'
On the submission of the apex bank on food security in the country, Prof Sheikh posited: 'Self-sufficiency is a goal and the thing about a goal is that when it is not achieved, we will be searching first to achieve it. We, as a nation, are not food- sufficient but that does not mean we cannot be.
'Given what we have in our environment in terms of natural endowment, even the peace that we enjoy in this country is enough to say we have what it takes to be self-sufficient in food production. And, if we are so endowed, it becomes an aberration for us not being able to feed ourselves. But we will get there.
'We should ordinarily have the capacity to grow what we want and the capacity to sell what we grow. The first challenge is the idea of getting appropriate balance in terms of diversification. Even the oil which is an endowment to us gives an illusion that the answer to this country is in oil, leaving the other endowments like agriculture unattended to. Inadequate diversification is a challenge but when you take each one of them, l think agriculture has a place there but not without its challenges,' he submitted.