Farmers want interest rates on bank loans cut to 5 per cent

The government says it’s working hard to make the country’s farmers operate at their full potentials.

Players in the country’s agricultural sector on Tuesday asked the Federal Government to intervene and compel the banks to bring down the interest rates on loans granted to farmers to between one and 5 per cent.

A representative of the farmers, Yemisi Iranloye, who was speaking during the Presidential Policy Dialogue at the ongoing 19th Nigerian Economic Summit (NES) in Abuja said efforts at growing productivity in the agricultural sector were hampered by the high interest rates on loans by banks, which range between 9 and 22 per cent.

Mrs. Iranloye, who underlined the need for government support for farmers who are ready and committed to engage in productive activities to boost their capacity, also asked the Federal Government to prevail on the banks to relax their strict enforcement of conditions, as most small-scale farmers in the rural areas have been denied access to loans as a result of stringent conditions.

President Goodluck Jonathan, who assured that government was doing all within its capacity to remove the bottlenecks militating against the productivity of farmers, said the provision of basic infrastructure was receiving priority attention as a way of cutting cost of transportation and distribution, which are responsible for the high cost of agricultural products in the country.

The President lamented that at the moment, because of poor infrastructures like roads and poor electricity supply, transportation of agricultural goods to Europe was becoming cheaper than movement of such products from one location to another within the country.

He said the Federal Government was currently working with the African Development Bank (ADB) to construct the trans-regional road from Lagos to Dakar to facilitate the easy movement of agricultural products within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region.

The president said that with the ongoing privatization exercise in the power sector, government was ready to provide adequate electricity to help farmers in the operations.

“We will work very hard as a government to provide the necessary infrastructure to create the right environment for the farmers to operate,” the president said. “Power generation, transmission and distribution are key priorities. Without power one cannot talk about agriculture. That is why the government has fast-tracked the privatization of the power generation and distribution companies, which is almost being concluded. Immediately that is completed, power would take a life of its own. The revolution in the telecom sector will soon happen in the power sector.”

On sustainability of successful agricultural policies in the country, the president said although no government could guarantee that its successor would continue to implement the policies exactly the way it left, his administration had opted to focus on building and strengthening institutions rather than individuals as a way out of the problem.

“We are not building individuals, but institutions to ensure sustainability of government policies in the agricultural sector,” the president said.

The focus of the 19th NES was on agriculture, currently undergoing massive restructuring and transformation, with particular attention on agriculture as a business.

Director General, NESG, Frank Nweke, in choosing to focus on agriculture, the goal was to turn Nigeria into a global agricultural powerhouse, saying that the summit would provide the forum for participants to discuss ongoing reforms in the country’s agricultural sector.

Mr. Nweke said discussion would dwell on efforts at improving infrastructure, agro-industrial zones, financing and enabling policy environment critical for the full exploitation of the agricultural value chains, attainment of food security, employment and generation and wealth creation.

With unemployment rates rising to about 23.9 per cent in 2011 and food import bill at about $8billion in 2012, he said Nigeria had the opportunity to minimize the problem and conserve valuable foreign exchange through massive investment in the agricultural sector.

“Agriculture holds the key to Nigeria’s economic transformation and diversification of the economy, which currently employs about two thirds of the labour force and contributed 40 per cent to Nigeria’s GDP (gross domestic product) in 2012,” he said.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Akinwumi Adesina, identified the challenges government was facing in supporting farmers operate at their optimum capacity, including the dearth of biometric data and information on farmers to enable government know the number it was dealing with.

Already, the minister said about 10 million farmers have been registered from the various states of the federation to enable government channel its support to those who require support to boost their productivity.

He said farmers now have identity cards used in most of their transactions, particularly with banks and other financial institution