Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, says the anchor borrowers’ programme (ABP) increased rice milling plants from 6 to 50 in the last six years.
Emefiele added that the national output of rice production also increased from 5.4 million metric tons in 2015 to over 9 million metric tons in December 2021.
The CBN governor said this at the unveiling of FCT mega rice pyramids under the RIFAN/CBN anchor borrowers’ programme on Tuesday in Abuja.
He commended the effort of the rice farmers association of Nigeria (RIFAN) for producing the largest rice pyramids in Africa.
Emefiele said that the national output in agricultural production had tremendously increased since 2016 when the initiative began, adding that it has reduced the dependency on imported rice.
President Muhammadu Buhari on November 17, 2015, launched ABP โ an initiative of CBN โ as a fallout of the nation’s over-reliance on crude oil earnings, which is susceptible to a downturn in the oil market.
โThe programme has developed an ecosystem among all nodes of the agricultural value chain, and these linkages can be better optimised through synergy among all stakeholders. As the end of December 2021, we have financed 4,489,786 farmers that cultivated 5,300,411 hectares across 21 commodities through 23 Participating Financial Institutions in the 36 States of the Federation and FCT,โ Emefiele said.
Emefiele added that Nigeria’s milled rice can now match with the foreign-produced rice โ in quality.
The apex bank governor acknowledged the efforts of smallholder farmers in executing the food security initiatives, adding that the vision to improve the agricultural value chain has been achieved through the dedication and diligence of the farmers despite facing all odds.
โIndeed, we lost some farmers to insurgency attacks nationwide whilst some could not access their farmers for several months. Yet, they kept the faith. They did not give up. They persevered. They did not abandon our fight for food self-sufficiency,โ Emefiele added.
