Agriculturist urges farmers to embrace CBN’s Anchor Borrowers Programme

Farmers in Ekiti State have been advised to embrace the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Anchor Borrowers Programme to expand their farming activities and boost food production.
An Agriculture consultant, Dr. Emmanuel Akosile, gave the counsel on Friday while addressing a group of arable crops farmers during their monthly meeting in Ikole, Ekiti State.
The CBN’s Anchor Borrowers Programme aims at creating economic linkages between over 600,000 smallholder farmers and reputable large-scale processors.
This is with a view to increasing agricultural output and significantly improving capacity utilisation of integrated mills.
It also aims at closing the gap between the levels of local rice production and domestic consumption, as well as complements the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture.
The programme will graduate GES farmers from subsistence farming to commercial farming.
Akosile urged farmers that needed money to invest in genuine farming to take their ongoing registration for the scheme seriously.
He said the farmers should see the new scheme as real and should not be discouraged to key into it in spite of any unfavourable past experiences.
The consultant assured intending beneficiaries of quick disbursement of funds once they were able to fulfil the requirements.
Akosile said: “The current administration is committed to its economic diversification to agriculture and as such determined to assist farmers with funds and other incentives that will make the country to be food sufficient.
“The Federal Government has frowned on the nation’s dependence on food importation, especially those ones we can produce locally.
“So farmers and unemployed Nigerians should embrace all government’s agricultural schemes, which are aimed at lifting small scale farmers out of poverty and also providing employment opportunity for the unemployed.”
Akosile, however, admonished the farmers who would benefit from the programme not to be tempted to divert the fund to other areas, apart from agriculture.
He said the present administration had zero tolerance for corruption and other forms of indiscipline.
The consultant warned that whoever wanted to use government funds for other purposes should not bother to apply.