The Small Holder Women
Farmers Association of Nigeria (SHOFAN) has called on the Federal Government to make credit facilities available to its members.
The National Secretary of the association, Mrs Lovelyn Ejim, gave the group’s position in an interview with newsmen.
Ejim noted that the Federal Government, through the Central Bank of Nigeria, had set up an agency to reduce lending risk.
She said: “They introduced NIRSAL (Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing Agricultural Lending) that is a group set up by CBN to oversee lending to farmers in a way that there would be reduced risk.
“They share in the risk but the issue is that it is still going into commercial banks.
“You access that money through commercial banks like UBA, Diamond Bank. But the type of bottleneck that is always associated with these banks is so enormous.
She said it was usually difficult to access the fund because the banks gave the loans to big-time business concerns rather than small holder farmers.
Beneficiaries, she said, included agro input dealers and the rest of them, pointing out that by so doing, the grassroots were not allowed access to the funds.
She, however, noted that the intention for the initiative was good but added that only the wealthy farmers had access to the loan.
Ejim advised that government should consider small holder women farmers in their credit facilities, saying that 70 per cent of the funds should be channelled to women farmers.
The scribe explained that this was imperative because small holder farmers produce 90 per cent of the nation’s food, saying that women were committed to paying back the money they borrow.
According to her, the easier and faster credit facilities are made available to them the earlier food security would be guaranteed in the country.
On the intention of the federal government to ban rice importation, she said the association in Enugu had started planting improved specie of rice called FARO 44.
She said further that the association was collaborating with Bio-Mass Limited to embark on all season rice farming involving USAID to ensure all-round availability of the produce.
She said the state had already installed a rice de-stoning machine with the capacity of processing 36,000 tons per hour.
Ejim also called for more funding so as to make sure the rice de-stoning machine was effectively utilised adding that proper funding would enhance production.