Association seeks review of loan procedure to farmers

THE All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) has advised the Federal Governmentto review the structure and procedure ofaccessing agricultural loans, to enhancefood production by rural farmers.The Financial Secretary of AFAN, Dr. Tunde Arosanyin, gave theadvice in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria recently in Abuja.Arosanyin said thatif rural farmers had access to these loans, it would help them to engage in many agricultural activities that would assist the nation's drive forfood self-sufficiency.He expressedregret that mostfarmers in the rural areas, whom, he noted, wereresponsible for the bulk of food production in the country, did not have accessto the Federal Government's loan facilities due to the processes andconditions.'The bulk of the Nigerian farmers are illiterates in the rural areas and so even the forms, the opening of accounts will be a little bit complex for the average Nigerian farmer to understand.'With all the terms of opening an account, servicing it; I will have to have 10 per centto 20 per cent deposit in such accounts before I can even apply.'All these have closed the door to the bulk of farmers in the rural areas; they cannot even access the loans with all the compromises and terms,' he said.The Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN), in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in 2011, established a N200 billion Commercial AgricultureIntervention Fund to be disbursed as loan to farmers.The scheme, which wasinitially meant to promote commercial agricultural enterprises, waslater expanded to accommodate small-scale farmers.According to him, only 18of the 36 states and theFCT haveso far accessed the N1 billion allocated to each state.Arosanyin therefore,suggestedthat the Federal Government should use commodity associations todisburse loans and farm inputs to enable rural farmers to benefit from the system.'Most of the commodity associations know their members and they can be very responsible; they all have national structures - from national to states, to local governments and the wards and to the villages.'If such programmes come through the commodity associations, definitely they are going to have a better impact than what we have now.'Once a loan is allocated to the national body with strict conditions to guarantee equity and fairness, definitely it will drip down to the their membership in the wards and in the villages.'Arosanyin commendedthe distribution of seeds to farmers under theGrowth Enhancement Scheme (GES), describing theconcept as remarkable.'I have monitored some of the programmes in the middle belt- Kogi, Benue and Kwara, the seeds are okay but in some states, they got the fertiliser before the seeds, which should have been the other way round.'Heexpressed optimism that the scheme would succeed.
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