Proposed groundnuts pyramid in Kwara no longer feasible – farmers

The National Groundnuts Producers and Marketing Association of Nigeria, Kwara State chapter, has said the union’s proposed first Kwara Groundnuts Pyramid would no longer be feasible. The state chairman, Paul Tsowa, told Daily Trust on Sunday that the leadership tussles at the national and poor planting season were responsible for the failure. According to him, […]

The National Groundnuts Producers and Marketing Association of Nigeria, Kwara State chapter, has said the union’s proposed first Kwara Groundnuts Pyramid would no longer be feasible.

The state chairman, Paul Tsowa, told Daily Trust on Sunday that the leadership tussles at the national and poor planting season were responsible for the failure.

According to him, “the leadership tussles at the national level of the association have affected us in Kwara as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), declined us the needed incentive.”

“We were into the Anchor Borrowers scheme this year which allows Kwara Groundnuts farmer to apply for loan. But the leadership crisis at the national level made us fail woefully.

“We had certain inputs like spraying can, seeds and chemical from the CBN, but the apex bank withheld the needed fund to boost planting this year,” Tsowa said.

He lamented that groundnuts production capacity this year in Kwara will witness gross decline, saying farmers were staved of incentive to boost production as a result of row in the union.

“We should be expecting decline in groundnuts production in Kwara this year. We have been hampered by the internal face-off which caused the CBN to renege on its statutory mandate.

“The CBN at a point approved what we demanded before it. About 2000 Kwara groundnuts farmers applied for N350,000 loan each after which we were given some inputs. If not for the lingering crisis, the loan would have been disbursed.

“Only very few of our members who were able to source for credits externally had extensive planting season, but they are very few. So, our earlier projection of groundnuts pyramid in Kwara for this year will not be achievable,” the groundnuts boss affirmed.

Twosa further added that the union’s plea with the Kwara State government to put in place groundnuts processing plant has not been met, adding that the state has comparative advantage in groundnuts production.

“Though the state government recently gave us fertilizers, and subsidy to farmers, lack of access to credit facilities has always hampered our capacity to compete with other state like Niger,” he added.