The Governor of Central
Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emiefule, has announced the bank and commercial banks’ initiative to grant N300 billion loan to the agriculture sector in 2016. Good news! Isn’t it? His explanation suggests that the commercial banks are to use some of their liquidity to grant new loans to the agriculture sector and its value chains.
The bankers committee no doubt, has done this, to demonstrate their support to the efforts of the federal government to create employment and diversify the economy. However, all these support will be tantamount to effort in futility if the real farmers are not captured in the scheme. Portfolio and political farmers are known to always emerge from the blues whenever agricultural incentives are trumpeted, a reason for which many loan schemes had been frustrated as loans were never repaid because they were given to the wrong persons who never invested them.
Before the announcement of the release of the N300bn loan scheme by the Central Bank of Nigeria, Nigerian farmers have at various seasons and regimes, come to terms with exciting headlines and news highlights such as tax incentives for farmers, USDA grants for new farmers, grants for beginning farmers and ranchers, agricultural incentive programs etc.
While some farmers recount the testimony of how they were financially stabilised through these agricultural programs  and incentives of different governments, others would say they are mere channel administrators and their cohorts pass through to loot government’s treasury.
The differing views about government’s attitude towards the farmers does not contradict the fact that at various times in governance, there were programs and initiatives orchestrated by the governments, purportedly to assist local farmers break-even and contribute to the country’s gross national product, neither does it highlight the Nigerian farmers’ in gratitude towards governments’ efforts at alleviating their plight and sustainable development.
The intervention of the world government through the introduction of the eight (8) millennium development goals (MDGs), broken down into eighteen (18) quantifiable targets that are measured by forty-eight (48) indicators, is enough pointer to the fact that a responsible government is never at ease while its citizenry groan in abject poverty.
The millennium development goal (1) which is about the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, is a goal that can primarily be met through agriculture. As the foremost of the basic human needs, this can only be actualised if all the actors work together and play well their parts.
Apart from being seen to be helping the farmer who is a major actor in the ‘play’, the burden of poverty alleviation and eradication of extreme hunger is quite enormous to be left in the care of the farmers alone. Meanwhile, the government would only be said to be playing its own role according to the script to ensure an eventual success of the entire initiative.
From drought, extreme heat to sea level rise and flood, the farmer, especially the small holder farmer is on the frontline of climate change which every increase in climate shocks drastically affect livelihoods and yields. In recent time, weather patterns are obviously becoming more and more unpredictable, the farmers must not be abandoned to his fate else he would be found walking and working against the wind.
To help farmers source for viable crops and adapt to climatic changes, interventionary measures must never be compromised, efforts of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Food Agricultural Development and Management Agency (FADAMA) and series of agricultural development programmes are yet to be felt by rural farmers in the South-South geo-political region of Nigeria courtesy of poor management that is not driven by the objective of the initiators of these programs.
The agricultural mileage in Nigeria is no longer evaluated on the basis of the number of intervention schemes so far flown, but on the impact so far made. The era of how far is gradually giving way to   how well. Hence, of great importance is the interest placed on who manages what fund and initiative.
Again, it must be told that those who can meet up with bank’s requirements for agricultural loans in South-South geo-political region are only portfolio, political farmers and not the core farmers. While Emiefule calls on all hands to be on deck to boost power and transportation so that banks would achieve the goals of improving the economy, I cun of  the view that corruption in the agricultural sector can also be checked by setting aside bogus and stringent requirements for securing loans and going to the farmer’s site to see what the farmer has on ground with a view to seeing how he can be helped and even monitored to ensure that he realizes what it takes to repay his loan.
If agriculture in Nigeria must be taken to the next level, then now is the time to visit the farmers farms and act accordingly and not cataloguing unattainable paper requirements that can hardly be decoded by the farmer.

Sylvia ThankGod-Amadi