THE Federal Government, on Tuesday, appealed to commercial banks to reposition their lending programmes to support critical growth areas of the economy.Speaking in Abuja at the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding for financing supply of seeds and fertilizers during the 2012 season, the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, stressed the need for banks to deploy their expertise in agriculture financing.She called on the commercial banks to invest in human capital, better risk management techniques, and technology necessary to support lending to the agricultural sectors.In her words, 'as things stand, agriculture contributes about 40 per cent of GDP but receives only two per cent of the total financing available to the private sector, banks should reposition their lending programmes to support critical growth areas of the economy, as highlighted in the President's transformation agenda.'She added: 'Let me use this opportunity to reiterate that while the government is willing to create an environment conducive for the private sector to thrive, the era of granting government guarantees randomly is over. Nigerian enterprises and their financiers must learn to conduct their businesses with limited support from the government, because these guarantees are contingent liabilities on the government's books and have implications for our fiscal consolidation programme.'The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, on his part, expressed dissatisfaction that Nigeria spends N1.3 billion yearly, on imports of basic things like rice, sugar, wheat among others, which put so much fiscal burden on the economy. And this, according to him, is not physically, economically and politically sustainable.Only 8,000 farmers are using improved seed amounting to only 5 per cent of the farmers having access to improved seed, which is very low, in terms of fertilizer. He lamented that only the average fertiliser used rate is 13kg/ha, which is very low when compared to the global average of 100kg/ha.To attain the goal we have set to provide additional 20 million metric tonnes of food in the next four years, Adesina said their was need to raise productivity of agricultural system and we must ensure that farmers have access to improved seeds and fertilizer.He reiterated that the government is out of fertilizer distribution and procurement, pledging that the government was going to provide an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive in agro dealership to sell directly to the farmers.Seed and fertilizer will be directly distributed to the farmers without intermediate in between. And we are going to reach five million farmers with the appropriate incentives.Speaking on the N30 billion facility to be given to farmers for the 2012 farming season, he said 2.4 billion will be going to seed companies while the remaining will be for the agro dealers, so each agro dealers will be entitled to three million facility.Stressing the power of collaboration with the private sector, he said the government is working towards bridging the gap between the private and the public sector.
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