By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
A total N756.51 billion has been disbursed to more than 3.7 million farmers under the Anchor Borrower’s Programme (ABP) since its inception seven years ago.
President Muhammadu Buhari launched the ABP in 2015 to boost agricultural production and end or reduce food imports in a country with swathes of fertile land North and South.
But Islamist jihadists are preventing crop cultivation in the North and Buhari has refused to prosecute and jail them while he is eager to hunt down Southern agitators for justice administration.
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) disclosed that the beneficiaries include farmers of cereals (rice, maize, wheat et cetera) cotton, roots and tubers, sugar cane, tree crops, legumes, tomato, and livestock, per The PUNCH.
Loans are disbursed through deposit money banks, development finance institutions, and microfinance banks the ABP recognises as participating financial institutions.
SMEs, TCF, youths
“Under the bank’s development finance initiatives, the bank granted N756.51bn to 3,734,938 smallholder farmers cultivating 4.6 million hectares of land, of which N120.24bn was extended for the 2021 wet season to 627,051 farmers for 847,484 hectares of land, under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme,” the MPC said.
Another N121.57 billion has been disbursed to 32,617 beneficiaries under the Agribusiness, Small and Medium Enterprise Investment Scheme the CBN introduced in February 2017.
As of May 2021, about 109,879 SMEs had benefited from its Targeted Credit Facility (TCF) and National Youth Investment Fund schemes.
In the TCF, N318.17 billion was released to 679,422 beneficiaries, comprising 572,189 households and 107,233 SMEs, according to the CBN.
“Under the National Youth Investment Fund, the bank released N3 billion to 7,057 beneficiaries, of which 4,411 were individuals and 2,646 SMEs.”
Other sectoral allocations
Other sectors that have benefited include health, information and communication technology (ICT), and film.
Under the Creative Industry Financing Initiative (CIFI), N3.22 billion was disbursed to firms classified as confidential beneficiaries across movie production, movie distribution, software development, fashion, and IT verticals.
“Under the N1 trillion Real Sector Facility, the bank released N923.41 billion to 251 real sector projects, of which 87 were in light manufacturing, 40 in agro-based industry, 32 in services and 11 in mining.
“On the N100 billion Healthcare Sector Intervention Facility, N98.41 billion was disbursed for 103 health care projects, of which 26 are pharmaceuticals and 77 are in the hospital services.”
Up to N232.54 million was disbursed to five beneficiaries under the CBN Healthcare Sector Research and Development Intervention (Grant) Scheme for the development of testing kits and devices for Covid-19 and Lassa fever.
NIRSAL facilitates N148b agric funding
Other schemes are also being implemented to ensure national food sufficiency.
In February, the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agriculture Lending (NIRSAL) announced that it had facilitated more than N148 billion in finance and investments for agriculture and agribusiness.
NIRAL Managing Director Aliyu Abdulhameed told journalists in Abuja that the firm achieved the feat by the fourth quarter of 2020.
He said NIRAL aggregated over 3,000 agro geo-cooperatives with 500,000 farmers on nearly 800,000 hectares of land.
“We enrolled 1.4 million persons onto innovative insurance products designed by NIRSAL in collaboration with a consortium of agricultural insurance underwriters,”
Abdulhameed explained.
NIRSAL is engaging with and supporting the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment in the development of a policy on Secured Agricultural Commodity Transport and Storage Corridors.
This, Abdulhameed enthused, would curb post-harvest losses and create efficient routes for commodity movement and storage.
“In the course of the last 13 months, we facilitated the flow of over N30 billion into agricultural value chains from commercial banks and other sources.
“Even though our operations suffered a stall during the lockdown of 2020, our technological depth gave us a pathway to return to work while remaining safe and socially-distanced.
“As you know, it was important to continue, even increase, food and raw materials production as the pandemic bit harder.”
He said NIRSAL had grown its balance sheet to N140 billion, equity by 1,415 per cent, and total assets by 87 per cent.
The number of farmers NIRSAL had worked with had also grown, he stressed, especially since it fully unveiled its agro geo-cooperative model in 2020.