CBN policy delays wheat farming in Kano —Farmers

Wheat Farmers in Kano State have blamed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for the delay in the take-off of this year’s wheat planting season in the state.

Faruk Rabiu, Kano State chairman, Wheat Farmers Association of Nigeria (WFAN), told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that participating banks withdrew from the anchor-borrower programme due to CBN policy.

According to the WFAN chairman, CBN’s initial insistence that participating banks must take 50 per cent risk was one of the reasons the banks withdrew from the anchor-borrower programme.

“At initial stage, CBN insisted that the participating banks must take 50 per cent of the risk, but the banks insisted that they could only bear 10 per cent of the risk.

“This is the reason the banks withdrew from the programme because opening an account is one of the prerequisites for getting the loan,” Rabiu said.

He said the wheat farmers had to open other accounts with the Bank of Agriculture, in order to obtain the BVN number before benefiting from the scheme.

The WFAN chairman said the CBN had so far cleared a total of 1,680 out of about 7,000 farmers that registered for the programme in the state.

According to him, the association had completed arrangement to forward the second batch of about 4,000 registered farmers to the CBN for clearance.

He assured the farmers that the association was making effort to ensure that the programme commenced across the state within the next 10 days.

He lamented that the number of farmers that registered was far below the 75,000 targeted to register for the programme.

NAN reported that anxious farmers had continued to troop to WFAN Kano office seeking explanation from the officials on what caused the delay in the disbursement of the loan.

NAN recalled that Kano State governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, officially kicked off the wheat planting season on October 20.