The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) at the weekend disclosed that the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme had created 2.5 million jobs since its implementation started in 2015.
Giving this hint during the annual bankers’ dinner in Lagos, the apex bank governor, Godwin Emefiele, disclosed that as at October 2018, a total number of 862,069 farmers, cultivating about 835,239 hectares, across 16 different commodities, had benefited from the programme.
This is even as he pointed out that the ABP had also generated over 2.5 million jobs across the country.
He said: “It is in light of the success of the Anchor Borrowers Program with regards to cultivation of rice and maize that the Monetary Policy Committee in its last meeting on the 21st of November 2018 recommended that the Anchor Borrowers program be applied to other areas such as palm oil, tomatoes, and fisheries to mention a few.
“The CBN recently introduced the Real Sector Support fund; a facility meant to provide cheap funding at no more than nine percent to new projects in the Agric and manufacturing sectors; aimed at boosting output and creating jobs”, Emefiele added.
It would be recalled that the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme was launched by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 to create a linkage between anchor companies involved in the processing and smallholder farmers (SHFs) of the required key agricultural commodities.
