CBN releases 50,000 metric tons of maize to Obasanjo Farms, others

The Central Bank of Nigeria has approved the release of 50,000 metric tonnes of maize to Obasanjo Farms and 11 other major feed producers.

The maize was released from the Strategic Maize Reserve under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme as part of efforts to control the prices of the product in the Nigerian market.

Other recipients of the grains include Premier Flour Mills, Animal Care, Crown-Olam, Zartech, Grand Cereals, Amobyn and Hybrid Feeds, Wacot, Sayeed Farms, Pandagri Novum and Premium Farms.

Spokesman, Central Bank of Nigeria, Osita Nwanisobi, said the release of the maize to the companies, which is the third of such releases, is intended to check the activities of middlemen who hoard the product and are causing artificial scarcity.

Nwanisobi said the measure would help crash the price of maize, reduce pressure on the market, and make the product directly available to feed producers, thereby reducing the price of poultry feed in the country.

As part of the bank’s financing framework, he said the CBN would continue to facilitate the funding of maize farmers and processors through the ABP commodity associations, private/prime anchors, state governments, maize aggregation scheme, and the commercial agricultural credit scheme.

Speaking on the development, the National President of the Maize Association of Nigeria, Bello Abubakar, urged middlemen to desist from taking advantage of the supply gap to hike the price of the grains.

Abubakar also assured that farmers in Nigeria would maintain reasonable pricing of the products.

In a related development, the CBN in a renewed move to address the rising cost of food prices collaborated with the Rice farmers Association of Nigeria to distribute 27,000 metric tonnes of rice paddies directly to millers nationwide on June 24, 2021.

The direct allocation from RIFAN warehouses across 16 States of the Federation followed the earlier sale of paddy aggregated as loan repayment under the ABP to millers from the rice pyramids unveiled in Niger, Kebbi, Gombe and Ekiti States.