The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has provided N14.9 billion loan to the North East Commodity Association (NECAS), through its Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) scheme.
The National President of the association, Alhaji Sadiq Deware, who made this disclosure on Monday in Abuja, said that the loan was provided at 9 per cent interest rate for one year to beneficiaries.
According to him, 27,000 farmers would benefit from the loan and 75,000 hectares of land would be cultivated in the participating states of Taraba, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa and Yobe.
Deware explained that out of the 27,000 farmers 10,000 were from Gombe State, adding that the high number of beneficiaries from the state is based on their commitment to farming activities.
Specifically, he disclosed that in the state alone 11,525 farmers were cultivating 38,678 hectares of land for maize, sorghum, soya beans, rice and cotton, while Yobe State farmers were cultivating 14,666 hectares of land by 5,676 farmers.
The NECAS leader, who disclosed that the programme would cover all the commodities that the North east have comparative advantage of producing, said that inputs would be given to farmers on loan basis and that they were expected to pay back in three phases.
He clarified: “Starting with first payment of 40 per cent after the first farming cycle, then they would pay the remaining two cycles of 30 per cent making a total of 100 per cent.
“Before now, the size of each farm had been captured and an identity card was issued to each of the beneficiaries of the project for easy identification and documentation to enable them to access the required support”, Deware added.
The commodity expert described the project as a modified version of the ABP, which was aimed at strengthening efforts to attain bumper harvests and expressed optimism that the new initiative would surpass the achievements recorded by the ABP in the participating states.
Deware explained further that under the new initiative, the CBN had modified the programme to facilitate its direct bearing with NECAS with a view to ensuring timely disbursement of funds to beneficiaries and full repayment of the loans.
On the issue of capacity building among members of the association, the NECAS leader hinted that association had re-absorbed some of the retired extension agents in the participating states and re-trained them on modern technologies to improve their performance.
Dware said that in order to ensure successful implementation of the programme in the various states, the extension workers had been taught on the working systems of modern technologies in service delivery and expressed the hope that the training would be beneficial to the farmers.
According to him, the capacity building efforts aim at encouraging increased agricultural production in line with the drive to diversify the economy and because agricultural extension agents play crucial roles in agricultural sector growth globally.
He said: “It has remained one of the prime movers in the development of agriculture and invariably in the rural development.
“There specific objectives as agricultural extension officers were to provide advice to farmers on problems or opportunities in agricultural production, facilitate development of local skills and transfer new technologies to farmers and rural people”, Deware added.
