Business
AFAN Urges Review Of Loan Procedure
The All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) has advised the Federal Government to review the structure and procedure of accessing agricultural loans, to enhance food production by rural farmers.
Dr Tunde Arosanyin, the Financial Secretary of AFAN, gave the advice in a telephone interview with our correspondent in Abuja
Arosanyin said that if rural farmers had access to these loans, it would help them to engage in many agricultural activities that would assist the nation’s drive for food self-sufficiency.
He expressed regret that most farmers in the rural areas, whom, he noted, were responsible for the bulk of food production in the country, did not have access to the federal government’s loan facilities due to the processes and conditions.
“The bulk of the Nigerian farmers are illiterates in the rural areas and so even the forms, the opening of accounts will be a little bit complex for the average Nigerian farmer to understand.
“With all the terms of opening an account, servicing it; I will have to have 10 per cent to 20 per cent deposit in such accounts before I can even apply.
‘’All these have closed the door to the bulk of farmers in the rural areas; they cannot even access the loans with all the compromises and terms. “
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in 2011, established a N200 billion Commercial Agriculture Intervention Fund to be disbursed as loan to farmers.
The scheme, which was initially meant to promote commercial agricultural enterprises, was later expanded to accommodate small-scale farmers.
According to him, only 18 of the 36 states and the FCT, have so far accessed the N1 billion allocated to each state.
Arosanyin, therefore, suggested that the federal government should use commodity associations to disburse loans and farm inputs to enable rural farmers to benefit from the system.
“Most of the commodity associations know their members and they can be very responsible; they all have national structures – from national to states, to local governments and the wards and to the villages.
“If such programmes come through the commodity associations, definitely they are going to have a better impact than what we have now.
“Once a loan is allocated to the national body with strict conditions to guarantee equity and fairness, definitely it will drip down to the their membership in the wards and in the villages.”
Arosanyin commended the distribution of seeds to farmers under the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES), describing the concept as remarkable.
“I have monitored some of the programmes in the middle belt — Kogi, Benue and Kwara — the seeds are okay but in some states, they got the fertiliser before the seeds, which should have been the other way round.’’
He expressed optimism that the scheme would succeed.
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