Why CBN created Anchor Borrowers’ Programme

Mr. Godwin Emefiele, Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has said the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) initiative is designed to complement other agricultural programmes in the country.

Emefiele who disclosed this at the formal flag off of the rice dry season farming in Jibia, Katsina State last year said Nigeria’s food import bills was exceptionally high, adding that rice and wheat formed part of four items that gulped a whopping N1 trillion in foreign exchange.

 He explained that the ABP became imperative when the government realized that food imports had fueled domestic inflation, depleted foreign reserves, displaced local production and created unemployment. He noted that import dependency especially on commodities of comparative advantage was neither acceptable nor sustainable.

He said with the fast depletion of rice reserve in the country, it became obvious that Nigeria could not afford to sustain rice importation. The first step in curtailing this, according to him, is to exclude rice from the forex eligibility list.

Emefiele also enumerated ABP’s challenges since its creation to include low yield rice varieties; poor farming practices and lack of good quality farm inputs, non-utilization of available cultivable lands; manual system of production and inadequate funding for the establishment and development of nucleus farms and small farmers out-grower schemes.

He also listed expectations from the ABP to include increase in the ratio of agricultural lending from 3.72 per cent of total bank lending in 2014 to 7.0 per cent; increased capacity utilization from the current level of less than 50 per cent to about 80 per cent; and empowering of at least 600,000 farmers in the rice, oil palm, wheat, cotton and fish value chains. Others are sorghum, maize, millet, tomatoes etc.

Other ABP targets achievable by 2021 would be the creation of at least 1,000,000 direct and indirect jobs in the processing segment of the identified value chains; reducing Nigeria’s import bill on the identified commodities by at least 10 per cent annually.

Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari, Governor of Katsina State, said the state had set aside N8bn for agric sector in its 2017 budget, adding that over 20,000 farmers were expected to participate in the ABP in the state.

 Masari, who described the ABP as a change initiative, also unveiled plans by the state to help farmers. He also mentioned a budgetary allocation of N300 million for rehabilitation and expansion of 10 dams, as well as establishment of a rice resource centre and a reservoir in Daudawa and Dandume towns respectively.