The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has expressed willingness to massively support farmers to boost the production of tomato, cocoa and palm oil across the country this year.
CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, said this during a visit to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh in Abuja, recently. Emefiele said the move was consistent with Federal Government’s resolve to attain food self-sufficiency and reduce food imports.
“We have supported cassava production in some southern states and we are going to aggressively push tomatoes this year. We are working with the South Western States and the ministry toward pushing cocoa this year.
The Development Finance Department of CBN has concluded its framework for palm oil in the south eastern and mid-western parts of the country. These are the things we are going to roll out this year, and I am sure that the kind of success we will see this year will bebetter than ever seen,” he said.
He noted that the apex bank would mobilise the people, the Organised Private Sector and companies to ensure rice importation was stopped this year.
Emefiele who also expressed confidence in the Federal Government’s ability to tackle the persistent farmers-herders clashes across the country, added that the bank had been devising ways of easing access to finance to Nigerians, especially farmers.
On his part, Ogbeh attributed the ministry’s success in the last two years to the bank’s support, and thanked the bank for providing
finance to farmers.
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“The backing of the CBN is so crucial because we have to move forward. Our country has to survive. Once we end rice and eventually wheat importation, we will begin to drive other crops.
We are going to re-launch cocoa this year in Ondo State, and revive the old trees with new fertilizer, which has an inclusion of boron,’’ he said.
He said the ministry had mandated the Bank of Agriculture (BoA), to ensure that farmers who obtained loans from the CBN, repaid them to enable othersto benefit.
Ogbeh revealed that exporters earned 35 million dollars from the export of hibiscus leaves known as ‘zobo’ to Mexico in last year. The minister added that Nigeria had received a Local Purchase Order (LPO) from Vietnam for the supply of raw cashew nuts worth N120 billion for this year.
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