A case has been made for the spread of the coverage of the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP), a project targeted at boosting food production under the supervision of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to more states in the country due to the impressive results recorded in rice and maize production. Despite the available information country is deficient in the two commodities, production have increased significantly through the ABP. This is because farmers had lamented that seeds, fertiliser and other inputs for food crop production have become too expensive, and extending assistance to them through the ABP scheme is not only desirable, but also crucial for the country.
The All Farmers’ Association of Nigeria (AFAN), said without deepening various existing funding systems and intervention programmes of the apex bank, improved seeds, fertiliser and other agro-chemicals that would help farmers to produce adequate quantity of food, would be a mirage. “Without such assistance, most farmers, due to financial constraints, would only recycle grains as seeds, avoid use of fertiliser and agro-chemicals and would do manual tillage, planting and weeding with resultant poor yields,” it said. It would be recalled that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recently disclosed that it would finance the cultivation of 600,000 hectares of grains in the 2022 wet season farming. The partnership, between the CBN and Maize Association of Nigeria (MAAN), through the ABP, had produced a total of 300 metric tons in 2021, which were displayed in 12 pyramids and released to the market through allocations to food and agro-allied stakeholders.
`According to the governor of CBN, Godwin Emefilele, “As we prepare for another wet season programme, the Central Bank of Nigeria is committed to financing over 600,000 hectares. Our strategy is hinged on improving productivity by providing more funding for the anchors to enable them utilise high quality inputs and good agronomic practices to boost output”. The apex bank has so far spent N864 billion on 4.1 million farmers cultivating 5.02 million hectares through the ABP. President Muhammadu Buhari had said that the ABP had supported over 4.8 million small-scale farmers with planting inputs and market linkages that had boosted their means of livelihood and food production saying, “The ABP has so far supported over 4.8 million smallholder farmers across Nigeria for the production of 23 agricultural commodities, including maize, rice, oil palm, cocoa, cotton, cassava, tomato, and livestock. Today, rice production in Nigeria has increased to over 7.5 million metric tonnes annually”.
