The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria expressed delight with the degree of interest in agriculture and the sector’s great influence over the previous six years. Without the foresight to restructure agriculture, he wondered how the country would have managed with the growing costs of food and other products around the world.

Emefiele said the central bank had assumed a pivotal role in agriculture since 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari directed that “we produce what we eat and eat what we produce”. The apex bank had come up with several initiatives aimed towards repositioning the sector with a view to creating employment opportunities as well as growing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), he said.

Shortly after the assessment of the farm, Emefiele attested to the giant strides already being recorded in the production of maize and cassava and expressed optimism that in the next 12 months, palm produce harvests would have commenced. He acknowledged the significant role played by Edo State Government, under the leadership of Governor Godwin Obaseki, who he said had matched words with action by making sure that arable land was made available to those genuinely interested in agriculture.

He urged other state governors to emulate Edo State’s lead, which had already made accessible almost 70% of the promised arable land.

Emefiele described the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP), among other CBN measures, as having revolutionized agricultural practice by allowing smallholder farmers who previously could not approach commercial banks for loans to do so. Farmers are now being given credit in the form of inputs such as seedlings, fertilizer, and herbicides, he added.

He said that smallholder farmers could now plant and produce enough food for their families, as well as easily sell their goods to repay their loans.

Emefiele also commended the efforts of the promoting company, Agri-Allied Resources and Processing Limited, and its parent company, Tolaram Limited, for heeding the clarion by the CBN to source their critical raw materials locally. He pointed out that the company had painstakingly embraced the backward integration principle by acquiring farmland, measuring about 18,000 hectares, for the cultivation of oil palm, cassava, and maize – the critical raw materials used by the group.

Earlier, Managing Director of Agri-Allaied Resources, Mr. Madhukar Khetan, said the company had so far accessed a 10-year loan in the sum of N15 billion at a single-digit interest rate with a two-year moratorium, under the Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme (CACS), for the project.

The farm currently has a workforce of about 1,000.