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Smallholder farmers in Abuja suffer from lack of access to agricultural credit and lack of government support.
Jeremiah Yunanna makes a living as a small farmer growing maize, beans, yams and other crops in Byazin, a rural community on the outskirts of Kubwa in Abuja. But Unanna said declining farm income and rising costs of living in Nigeria have made life more difficult for him and his family. The situation could not be reversed, as his efforts were in vain each time he pursued the program.
“I have never received a farm loan in the area she has been farming for over 30 years,” said the 53-year-old woman. “I tracked it down in 2013 and paid everything that had to be paid. In short, I spent about N70,000 and could not access the loan.”
More than ever, farmers are feeling the impact of lack of access to agricultural finance. High inflationary pressures in the country mean that the meager crops that support people like Unanna and her family are being eroded, adversely affecting daily farming activities. Many farmers are becoming poorer due to lack of access to credit.
Agricultural loans are loans available to farmers to start or expand their farming. Intended for agricultural development, this loan finances farmers and ranchers as they grow their crops, buy tools, harvest, or do other things to expand their agricultural business. . But Unanna said many farmers, especially small farmers in rural areas, do not enjoy intervention programs.
“I don’t have the funds to expand my farming business, which makes it difficult for me and my family,” he said. “We struggle to feed them because we cannot afford to buy fertilizers and improved seedlings to improve yields. Absent.”
disturbing statistics
Rising cost of living, high food prices and associated inflationary pressures are driving Nigerians into increasing poverty. Nigeria’s inflation rate rose to 21.09% in October, up 0.32% from 20.77% the previous month, according to figures released by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Food inflation in the same month was 23.72%.
The NBS reported in November that 133 million Nigerians, comprising 63% of the country’s population, live in poverty, with 72% of the population living in poverty, compared with 42% in Nigeria’s urban areas. He said multidimensional poverty is higher in poor rural areas. Many of those caught in the poverty net are smallholder farmers in rural areas.
Between June and August 2022, 19.4 million Nigerians are expected to experience severe hunger, according to a report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). More than 14 million people (including 385,000 refugees) in 21 states were already suffering from hunger by that time, according to the report. For farmers, low capital bases and lack of access to finance exacerbate the impact of ever-rising costs.
Data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) stated that the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF), one of the loan schemes for farmers introduced by the federal government in 1977, had facilitated a total of 1,224,795 loans valued at N129.084 billion to farmers across the country as of February 2022. Also, the CBN data shows that as of January 2021, banks under the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS), another credit scheme with the mandate to strengthen the agricultural sector by providing finance to the sector’s value chain (production, processing, storage and marketing), had disbursed N672.9 billion in loans to fund 636 commercial farming projects.
However, farmers who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES said even when government created intervention programmes to support local farmers, the grants or loans do not get to the real farmers in the local communities.
And according to data released by ActionAid, a non-governmental organisation working in Nigeria to tackle poverty and injustice, less than 23 per cent of smallholder farmers in Nigeria have access to agricultural credit.
Government Intervention
In November 2022, President Muhammadu Buhari said the Anchor Borrowers Programme, which he launched in 2015 to boost agricultural production, create jobs, and reduce food import bills for the conservation of the foreign reserve, supported over 4.8 million smallholder farmers across Nigeria to boost the production of 23 agricultural commodities. However, Yunanna and many other local farmers in Byazhi told this reporter that they have not benefited from the intervention programme. Yunanna said even after being advised to form or join a cooperative group to avail the loans, they were still unable to get the facility.
“Right now my hip pain is so bad that there is not much I can do on the farm. he added.
The inability of smallholder farmers in local communities to access credit makes them more vulnerable to rising costs of living, and many struggle with malnutrition and ulcers as a result of hunger and related worries. . According to Louise Milan, director of the screening unit at Byazhi Primary Health Center, the number of ulcer cases registered at the facility was increasing daily.
“Recently, the rate of ulcer patients we receive each day at this facility is staggering. We receive at least 13 to 15 ulcers each day,” Milan said.
“Many people in this community feel they are not eating well because body ulcer cases are associated with poor diet,” she said.
other farmers are not doing well
Juliette Ebere, a poultry farmer in her community of nearby Gubazango, said she never received a farm loan.
“She was looking for agricultural loans and subsidies from the government, and she tried many times without success,” Evere said. “I want to expand my poultry farm, but I have no money. I downsized the farm because the cost of poultry feed is high. Is not.”
Another poultry farmer in Byazhin, who identified himself simply as Anthony, said she also wanted access to agricultural financing.
“I really need a loan so I can expand my business and support my home.It is very difficult these days.The business is not going as well as it used to because of the high cost of feed. I have over 500 birds on my farm, but now I don’t even have enough money to feed my family, so I scaled it down to 200, and some of them are dead,” says Anthony. said Mrs. Augustin Ekpo, another farmer who grows yams, vegetables and other crops in the community, said he earned at least N50,000 a month selling vegetables when he had the money to keep the farm running. Told. However, he said production has declined due to lack of financial support.
His Ekpo, a farmer and father of his six children, had made several attempts to obtain loans to expand the farm.
“I have been farming for over 16 years and he has never received a farm loan or fertilizer to support the farm,” he said. “I tried many times, but it didn’t work. Government officials have even come to the community, given forms to fill out and taken pictures of the farm.I waited and saw nothing. ”
High impact, low reward
Smallholder farmers produce the majority of food in low-income and developing countries and form the backbone of food security. His 2017 study by the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) found that more than 80% of his farmers in Nigeria are smallholders.
Kabir Ibrahim, president of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), said better access to credit would improve food production in the country.
“Easy access to credit will undoubtedly help small farmers optimize their productivity. Without it, productivity can be negatively impacted,” said Ibrahim. He urged CBN to review its agricultural intervention program to meet the program’s goals.
“We have some windows from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), but if the situation needs to improve, we need to reassess to go directly to the actual farmers,” Ibrahim said.
“This article was supported by the Africa Data Hub (ADH)”