Ogun, stakeholders agree on Agric programme

Agency Reporter

Ogun State Government and stakeholders of the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) have agreed on production cost of commodities.

The Special Adviser to the Governor on Agriculture, Dr Adeola Odedina, said this at a Town Hall Meeting in Kobape, Abeokuta,

He said the ABP is a one-stop shop that will resolve issues for farmers through provision of loans by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

According to him, the state and the stakeholders had agreed on fertilisers, cost of transportation, scaring birds on rice farms and farmers equity.

The CBN, he said, is providing the funds while the state is providing the enabling environment, and the National Commodity Association are to ensure farmers linked to credit, inputs and ready markets.

“This meeting is based on how farmers will make profit from the ABP and repay the lent money, so that there would be food sufficiency in the state and our youths would be engaged. The focus is to link farmers to industries, and get raw materials from them. Government cannot do it alone, that is why we are doing the Public Private Partnership,” Odedina said.

ABP Steering Committee Chairman Prof. Bola Okuneye said the committee had done the necessary paper work to have a successful scheme.

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Prof. Okuneye said the meeting became imperative as the committee is trying to bring the major stakeholders (the buyers, the bank, CBN, Input Suppliers) together to minimise the problems of the farmers and ensure increased productivity on the part of the farmers.

CBN’s Representative Dr Yemisi Olukoya said the job of the Central Bank is provide access to affordable loans for farmers, which would be repaid in due course, as well as the assurance of a ready market as there are ready-made off-takers.

She noted the committee would let the apex bank know what cost of production is, the expected yield and the interest rate, then we consider the agricultural insurance corporation.

“All these for the farmers to know their profit margin, the variety of what they want to plant and what it would cost them to pay the people that would clear their land,” Olukoya said.