In line with his promise to ensure the smooth take off of the Federal Government Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) in Sokoto State, Governor Aminu Tambuwal has held a special meeting with officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), participating banks, farmers associations and other stakeholders in the sector.
Speaking during the meeting held at Government House, Sokoto on Wednesday, Tambuwal said the state government has made concrete arrangements to actualise the programme by providing 50,000 bags of high yield rice seeds to be distributed to farmers across the state free of charge.
He added that the government has also procured 5000 pumping machines at the cost of N30,000 each to be sold to anchor farmers at the cost of N10,000 each.
Tambuwal noted the major problem of the farmers was low level of awareness and urged the participating entities to increase awareness among farmers on the benefits of the programme.
While urging the officials of the anchor scheme to do their best to ensure the success of the programme, Tambuwal appealed to the farmers to embrace new techniques of farming and cooperate with Anchor officials so as to achieve the desired objectives.
“As banks, you have to make the processes of registration easy to comprehend especially for rural farmers. Banking guidelines are a bit complicated for the people, so you should put in machinery that will explain everything in details for them to understand,” he added.
In his remarks, Chairman of the State Committee for the Revitalisation of Agriculture, Chiso Abdullahi Dattijo, said so far, 6,265 farmers have opened accounts with various banks to signify their interest in the anchor borrowers’ scheme.
He said his committee has received applications from 19 input suppliers who have expressed interest to supply fertiliser, seeds, pumping machines and chemicals.
Commenting on the programme, representatives of CBN, banks and farmers associations reiterated their commitment towards attaining the desired objectives of the scheme.
The ABP was launched by President Muhammadu Buhari in Birnin-Kebbi, Kebbi State on Tuesday, November 17, 2015 to lift thousands of small scale farmers out of poverty and generate millions of jobs for unemployed Nigerians.
