Many farmers who collected loans from various agricultural intervention packages in the country for this year’s farming circle have been thrown into a dilemma on how to repay such loans as a result of devastating floods that washed away their farms. Daily Trust Saturday reports that most of the farmers across the country suffered severe losses, with many unable to salvage anything from their fields.
Experts in the country’s agricultural sector, including the National President of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Kabiru Ibrahim, an architect, have warned that this year’s harvest might not be bountiful as hectares of farmlands of agricultural produce such as maize, rice, cassava, potatoes, vegetables, among others, have been ravaged by floods in most communities in Nigeria.
Mr Toyin Adisa, an Ilorin-based agriculturist, warned that if urgent action was not taken, the unfortunate incident might affect food supply in the country this year.
These warnings are coming at a time Nigeria’s inflation rate hit a 17-year high on the back of soaring food prices and supply chain disruption in September.
According to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBA), inflation rose to 20.8 per cent in September, the highest rate since 2005, up from 20.52 per cent recorded in the previous month.
The statistics also shows that the country’s food inflation rate for the month stood at 23.34 per cent on a year-on-year basis, recording a surge from the 23.12 per cent recorded in the previous month.
Farmers in dilemma
The 2022 floods, according to the AFAN’s president, are the worst Nigeria has seen since 2012. It destroyed crops in over 500,000 hectares of farmlands belonging to thousands of smallholder and commercial farmers across the country.
There are pains and agony as investments and livelihoods of many farmers were washed away within the tinkle of an eye.
Most of these farmers said they accessed loans from both the Anchor Borrower Programme (ABP) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), some from commercial banks, some from micro finance banks and some from processors, especially rice farmers.
A flooded rice farm in Ozuho community of Kogi LGA in Kogi State
Figures at the beginning of the wet season this year showed that the CBN has reached over 4.8 million farmers and expended over N1 trillion to farmers across the country along 23 commodities.
Although the CBN gave out approximately N1trillion under the ABP, it only recovered N400 billion with about N600bn yet to be recovered.
However, under the Commercial Agriculture Credit (CAC), the bank lent out approximately N800bn and recovered approximately N700bn.
For many rice and maize farmers under the ABP, repayment is under threat. And many of these farmers have already been encumbered by last year’s payment.
Also, under the bank’s Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme, a total disbursement of about N744.32bn had been made for 678 projects in agro-production and agro-processing.
The amount so far repaid under the CACS could not be provided as at press time by CBN officials.
In July this year, it was reported that the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund, which is managed by CBN, had guaranteed 1.23 million loans given to farmers across the country.
The monetary value of the loans was estimated at N130.903bn. The Chairman, ACGSF, Stephen Okon, had said, “A total of 1,232,326 loans valued at N130.903bn were guaranteed from inception to May 2022 out of which 973,646 beneficiaries had repaid a total of N98.91bn.”
