The Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF), managed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has insured 1.232 million loans to farmers nationwide.
The loans have an N130.903 billion estimated financial value. The top bank also urged farmers to collaborate to boost value addition and diversification to revive the $430 billion national economies.
These events took place on Thursday in Abuja as part of the national award ceremony for the ACGSF’s Best Farmer of the Year Award for 2021.
According to the Chairman, ACGSF, Mr Stephen Okon, “A total of 1,232,326 loans valued N130.903b were guaranteed from inception to May 2022 out of which 973,646 beneficiaries had repaid a total of N98.91b.”
He stated that between January and May 2022, the Federal Capital Territory guaranteed 82 loans totalling N22.580 million.
According to him, this boosted the total number of guaranteed loans in the FCT from the program’s commencement in 1978 to May 2022 to 14,258, with an estimated N1.748 billion.
Regarding loan recovery, Okon stated that 11,726 loans totalling N801.058m had been repaid under the scheme in the FCT since its inception. He added that the records demonstrated the FCT officers’ high level of commitment and the farmers’ determination to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the scheme to better themselves and their lots.
“We do hope that before long, participants in the agricultural value chain in the FCT will take advantage of the opportunities provided in the Amended Act,” he said.
Decree No. 20 of 1977 established the ACGSF, which went into action in April 1978. By offering guarantees to banks lending to the agricultural sector, encouraging lending to the agricultural sector to increase its contribution to output, and rewarding good credit behaviour by obligors repaying conformably, it was intended to de-risk agricultural loans.
Okon added that the payment was a component of proactive steps to uplift people, lessen the effects of the financial crisis on the economy, and boost the agriculture industry.
“Truly, the Federal Government, through the ACGSF scheme as well as other development finance interventions of the CBN, has continued to promote the quest for the nation to attain food sufficiency,” he noted.
The Abuja Branch Controller, CBN, Michael Onyeka Ogbu, said the ceremony expressed the apex bank’s management’s commitment to supporting hard work, innovation, and productivity in the agricultural value chain.
“To this end, the CBN challenges Nigerian farmers to explore our various agricultural interventions aimed at enhancing value addition to their output towards attaining food self-sufficiency, provision of raw materials to our manufacturing industries and also for export, which ultimately assists in diversifying and improving the foreign exchange earnings base of our economy,” he said.
