The Maize Association of Nigeria (MAAN) has taken its nationwide strategic meeting with maize farmers and stakeholders on the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Anchor Borrowers loan recovery to North East and parts of North West Nigeria.
The team, led by the National President Dr. Bello Annoor Abubakar and other officials met with Maize farmers from the North East states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe states in Bauchi state.
He later also met with farmers from four North West states of Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Jigawa in the ancient city of Kano.
The both meetings had in attendance representatives of the Central Bank of Nigeria Bank (CBN), Bank of Agriculture (BoA), Nigeria Agricultural Insurance Corporation, Unity Bank of Nigeria and MAAN state chairmen from the region and National Executives.
While addressing the farmers and stakeholders Dr. Abubakar said the objective of the meeting was to review the impact of the loan on food security, deliberate on loan repayment strategies and the way forward for maize farmers.
Noting the objective of the loan, he said the loan was designed to support smallholder farmers to boost production and create jobs through agriculture.
Dr. Abubakar who reeled out the achievement of the loan so far in maize production and the lives of farmers in the country said despite the border closure by the Nigerian government and effects of the COVID-19 lockdown Nigeria still had food.
“When the president closed the border, he said we must produce what we eat and eat what we produce, despite the closure we ate what we produced especially maize”
“Before the borders could be reopened, the issue of COVID-19 came up and there was lockdown globally, so we spent about 2 years without food importation and there’s no food insecurity,
“Even with the ban on maize importation and there was outcry in some quarters about the scarcity of maize, we stepped up and produced and now we have enough and even excess maize”
While admonishing the state chairmen of the association on the importance of repaying the loans, the president said the loan has achieved a lot and farmers shouldn’t misuse the opportunity available.
According to him, the loan has gone a long way in ensuring Nigeria attains its national maize demands, increased the number of fertilizer blending plants due to increased demand for fertilizer by farmers, increased the number of maize processing mills and significantly contributed to the growth of the country’s GDP.
Dr. Abubakar said the process was not without some level of challenges as maize farmers experienced Drought, Flood, Covid-19, insecurity (Banditry, kidnappers, Boko Haram etc) affected production.
Further explaining how the insecurity affected farmers, he said in some areas, farmers couldn’t go to the farm while in other places those who were able to farm were either made to pay high taxes to the insurgents and Bandits, out rightly kidnapped for ransom or have their farms burnt despite paying what was demanded.
He also mentioned late disbursement of which led to late distribution of inputs to farmers and nonpayment of insurance claims by the insurance companies and part of the challenges being faced by farmers adding that That despite all the challenges, loan is a loan and it must be repaid and the association has taken very strict measures to ensure full repayment of these loans.
The Zonal Coordinator, North East Zone Development Finance Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Mr. Mahmood Nyako urged the association particularly the state Chairmen to seek realistic measures to repay the loans, Noting that for the Anchor Borrowers Programme to continue and be sustained the loans taken need to be repaid.
The representative of the Bank of Agriculture Kano Mrs. Ummah Sanusi while appreciating the effort of the Association for calling for a strategic meeting on repayment, called on the association to seek ways of disabusing the mind of the farmers from thinking the loan is their share of Nigeria’s commonwealth (National Cake).
She disclosed that the meeting has created a sense of hope as it shows the level of commitment of the association to repay the loans.
The Branch Manager Nigeria Agricultural Insurance Corporation, Bauchi state Mr. Saboji Abbati, said the corporation partners with MAAN to ensure that farmers with genuine claims get paid promptly.
He further explained that what insurance refers to as genuine claims are simply proper documentation adding that the corporation recently paid claims to farmers in the state to the tune of one hundred and twenty six million Naira.
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