The Federal Government, on Tuesday, January 12 charged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to reduce the lending rate to farmers in the country to five per cent.

Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh who spoke in Idofian, Ifelodun Local Government Area of Kwara State during the launch of the second phase of agricultural equipment hiring enterprise, said: “We thank the CBN for the efforts it has made so far to lend money to farmers at nine per cent interest rate. But we are like Oliver Twist, nine per cent is very good but it is not good enough for agriculture. Nine per cent is the highest for agriculture anywhere on planet earth.

“We want five per cent and we are going to plead with banks if they want this country to feed well- agriculture to grow and Nigeria to become a major exporter of food, interest rate has to reduce to the barest minimum. Five per cent will give them more returns as more farmers will borrow and pay back.

“Beginning from this year, Nigeria will embark on agro-forestry. We are looking at cashew at least two million trees a year, cocoa three million per year, because there should be no reason why Nigeria should be number 10 on the line of cocoa producers when just 50 years ago, we were number one. We are now miserably behind Ivory Coast and Ghana. We shall plant more castor seeds. Nigeria spends $350 million yearly importing castor oil.”

He said the programme on rice and wheat will increase, adding that another programme on cattle breed improvement is underway. He said 200 farmers in the country will start the programme which he said will be private sector driven but supported by the treasury.

http://www.financialwatchngr.com/2016/01/14/fg-pushes-for-5-interest-rate-on-agric-loans/

Good development if Banks implements it..

Praying Banks to also start interest free Marriage Loan.
This will encourage our men to go nd marry thus reducing the single galz on Nairaland nd Nigeria as a whole.

Good development if they succeeded it will really help and encouraged more youth to go into agriculture.

Nice one... Time to go into farming...




Check my signature for your breathtaking wallpapers and 3D wall panels, floors, ceilings and wooden blinds & floors..

H

Observing the development.

We all know it's a good development, nobody will ever dispute that.
However where we have problem is that this people never did anything before telling us.
It has always been "We shall", "we will" "this year", "next year"

And before you know it, it's election time again..

While we normally should commend this as a good gesture but this is another subsidy for the north.

Fuel sells cheaper in the north and utility costs are also the lowest in the north and tax revenues from that region also lowest. The issue of smuggling is an economy in all the core north border states especially Katsina.

This 5% interest loan is just another subsidy by this almajiri govt to his people in the north.

The north bennefits more than any region from Agric subsidies. Seedlings, fertilizers , construction of earth dams , access to tractors and other mechanized equipment , distribution of insecticides and an ever ready federal produce board to buy off their produce. This has made most of not all of the Agric budget go to the north and has created a situation whereby Adamu will rather invest in a new wife than in his farm because the Federal govt will pay for the next planting season.

At the end of the day, you will see a spike in registered farms under CAC by these Adamus just to access this cheap loans which they will redirect to buying forex.

This was the case during IBB's regime whereby that administration in order to kick start the deregulation of the aviation sector offered subsidized forex to liscenced aviation companies. Most of these companies that sprung up over night with their portakabin offices at the local wing of the Lagos airport where owned by nuttererners and were merely currency traders masking as aviation companies in order to access subsidized forex from CBN.

This policy will lead to higher interest rates as the federal govt will mandate banks (which are already struggling with cash crunch occasioned by bad loans to reckless governors like Aregberascal ) to set aside a percentage of their liquidity to fund this scheme.

At the end of the day, it is us in the south that will carry this burden for Adamu and co .

ZUBY77:
We all know it's a good development, nobody will ever dispute that.
However where we have problem is that this people never did anything before telling us.
It has always been "We shall", "we will" "this year", "next year"

And before you know it, it's election time again..

Hahahaha that is one major problem our leaders in this part of the world are finding difficult to tackle, they should do the work and leave the news for our journalists.