An agriculturist, Mr
Samuel Abdul, has called on government at all levels, as well as commercial banks and relevant bodies, to provide long-term loans for the development of the seeds.
He said that inadequate funding was the major problem that is being faced by practitioners in the distribution, production and marketing of seeds in the country.
Abdul, the chief executive of Halamas Seeds Enterprise, who made this call while speaking with The Tide in Port Harcourt, Thursday, pointed out that most of the banks are not willing to fund agriculture generally.
“Before now, we have never had financing from the banks. Most of the commercial banks in the country are shying away from funding not only seed development sector, but agriculture generally.
“They see the sub-sector as a highly risky sector and investing in it through loan has been a problem. But since the commencement of the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) Scheme by the Federal Government, short, term financing was no longer a problem for the sector.
“What we want now is the provision for long-term loans. We have got short-term access to financing, but that was not enough because the period is too short to keep”, he said.
The agriculturist also pointed out that the federal government through the Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, had developed a programme called Nigerian Incentive-based Risk-sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) to address some of the challenges, especially tackling the risk in the agricultural sector.

Corlins Walter