How to make agric loans more effective

TO enhance better co-ordination and tracking of agricultural loans, the Federal Government has been urged to create a national agricultural loans database.The President APRNet, Prof. Peter Eboh, who made the call through a release made available to The Guardian, noted that the database would among others help collate, archive and update the lending portfolios.He added that the database would also help collate the sources and uses of agricultural loans and loan outcomes, mentioning that it will serve as a reference framework for current and future design and implementation of private and public sector agricultural loan schemes.Eboh further called on the Federal Government to strengthen the National Council on Agriculture (NAC) to make the current agriculture transformation agenda to succeed.He stressed the need for government to further increase the institutional capability of the council for peer review and mutual learning among the states, adding that to maximise synergy between the federal and state government, their was need for a nation-wide tracking of agricultural policies.Eboh added that existing co-operation and collaboration between the Federal Government and the state governments are necessary to achieve synergy and complementarities in delivering and good policies and programmes to boost the agricultural and rural sector.He said, 'federal and state governments should provide greater public policy support for building the critical services for value chain development in the country.'He said the use of staple crop processing zones to target value chain development is a widely applicable international best practice and should be pursued intensively.Eboh applauded the government for the current project to produce comprehensive farmer database for the country, on a progressive basis, saying, 'the database will contribute valuable information about and clarify the characteristics of the Nigerian farmer, for planning and policy implementation purposes.Lamenting that the current value chain lack business and linkage services providers due to low capacity, he called on government to develop a crop of dynamic service to play roles like brokerage, financial intermediation, market exploration, business development and input supply.According to him, Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) has great potential to trigger a market-oriented, private sector led and business-oriented agricultural investment and growth in the country.
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