The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has reported the recovery of over N500 billion under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) loans, representing 52.39% of the total disbursements, from farmers and other beneficiaries as of the end of February this year.
The apex bank’s Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, Dr. Abdulmumin Isa, who gave these figures during an interactive session with journalists on the performance of the ABP, disclosed that total disbursements to farmers under the programme stood at N1.079 trillion as of the end of the February 2023, of which N0.960 trillion is due for repayment.
According to the spokesman, about 4.57 million smallholder farmers who cultivated over 6.02 million hectares of 21 commodities have benefitted from the programme as of the end of the month under review.
The director listed the commodities as rice, wheat, cowpea, millet, maize, cotton, fish, soya bean, poultry, cassava, groundnut, ginger, sorghum, oil palm, cocoa, sesame, tomato, castor seed, yellow pepper, onions, and cattle/dairy.
Citing statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FOA) to justify the apex bank’s intervention in the agriculture sector, he pointed out that the ABP had contributed significantly to the increased national output of focal commodities, with maize and rice peaking at 12.2 and 9.0 million metric tonnes in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
In addition, he explained that the programme had also helped to improve the national average yield per hectare of these commodities, with productivity per hectare almost doubling within the eight years of the Programme’s implementation.
Noting that repayments under the ABP are made through cash or produce by the beneficiaries, the spokesperson maintained that the outstanding due balance on loans was still under moratorium due to the COVID-19 forbearance granted to beneficiaries of the bank’s interventions in March 2020 and extended to February 28, 2022.
According to him, the tenor of loans under the ABP is based on the commodity gestation period. For instance, loans granted to farmers cultivating some perennial crops could have up to seven-year tenor,” he explained.
Isa stressed that the bank’s interventions, with the core objective of catalysing the economy’s productive base, had continued to support investments in capital assets in sectors with high-growth and employment-elastic potential.
He expatiated: “The Central Bank of Nigeria remains committed to its developmental mandate of stimulating access to finance for the real sector, particularly agriculture, as it continues to support the Federal Government’s drive for food security and economic growth.
Accordingly, the Central Bank of Nigeria continues to welcome applications from eligible Nigerian farmers and firms under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme”, Isa added.
