Women differ on benefits of Anchor Borrowers Programme

Jummai Babagana has been farming commercially for over two decades. “From a tender age, I have benefitted greatly from farming. Since I lost my husband, I have been able to cater for my entire family from my farming business,” she said. Jummai has farmland where she plants rice, maize, soya beans, beans, millet and guinea-corn […]

Jummai Babagana has been farming commercially for over two decades. “From a tender age, I have benefitted greatly from farming. Since I lost my husband, I have been able to cater for my entire family from my farming business,” she said.

Jummai has farmland where she plants rice, maize, soya beans, beans, millet and guinea-corn every year in Kaduna State. However, with farmland both in the city and the village, her challenges have been enormous.

“Due to lack of fertiliser, last year, I planted rice in a hectare, maize in another hectare and soya-beans in another hectare. After much delay, I only got two bags of fertiliser at N4,000. I could not use it because I got it late and as a result, I only got five bags of rice last year instead of about 10bags. Also, I got only six bags of maize instead of more than 10 bags I get in the past,” Babagana lamented.

Mrs. Lizzy Igbine , the National Leader, Nigerian Women Agro Allied Farmers Association told Daily Trust that  the CBN Anchor Borrowers scheme was meant to benefit smallholder farmers  but was fraught with difficulties and cumbersome procedures.

 She listed the problems to include poor availability of capital to mobilise farmers of the same crop in a particular area or zone. This has taken the business away from farmers and small scale business people, she said.

“Right now, the operators are major middle men and multinational companies and their commodity boards. I will give the scheme low mark for taking away agribusiness from farmers, farmers organizations to brokers,” she said.

 But Mrs. Rose D. S. Gyar, a member of the Federation of Agricultural Commodities of Nigeria (FACAN) in Abuja, said the programme benefits women farmers that are in groups or cooperatives, which under the programme, must be between 5 and 20 people who have off-takers in the commodity they produce.

“The only complaint I got from some women groups in Bayelsa was that while the CBN was willing to give them money to go into cassava production, they have a challenge getting processors that will uptake the produce, as such they could not get the loan because that is a condition to benefit from the scheme,” she said.

Mrs. Gyar who is also the Director, Centre for Human Empowerment and Entrepreneurship Development, Abuja, said the programme has benefited many women who were able to put themselves together producing a particular crop and have processors ready to uptake what they produce.She said the problem is in getting up-takers and following the guidelines stipulated by the CBN.

According to the Kano State chairperson of the Women Farmers Association, Hajiya Sidiya Fatima Shareef, women farmers in the state were actively engaged in the anchor borrowers’ scheme especially during the last rainy season.

She revealed that after series of sensitisation, the women massively registered and accessed the benefits of the scheme last rainy season, adding that the only problem they faced was late disbursement of the agricultural inputs to farmers.

The chairperson also stated that members of the association dealing in wheat farming are disappointed as they are yet to receive anything under the anchor borrower’s programme on wheat where 5,000 farmers are said to have been targeted in the state.

“Activities on wheat farming commenced since but women farmers that deal in wheat farming are yet to get anything.They were forced to go into farming with less capital and less inputs.

“Our fears are that, we do not want a repeat of what we encountered during the rainy season where inputs were given to farmers very late. The scheme is indeed a welcome development and what we have been agitating is for strict adherence to agricultural calendar of farming activities in our regions.

I am from Kiru local government and I produce over 100 bags of rice every year. I have been in agricultural business for almost two decades now. I know what it is to have inputs in good time,” Shareef said.

Another, woman farmer from Bebeji local government, Hajiya Magajiya Adamu, said the Anchor BorrowersProgramme has indeed changed the public perception on women in agriculture in the state as the scheme gave them equal opportunity to access good seeds, fertiliser and money during the last rainy season.

According to her though, the dry season rice farming activities in Bebeji have not begun, she is optimistic that the scheme will surely give women farmers equal opportunity as it did during the rainy season.

Hajiya Magajiya also revealed that, women marginalisation in agricultural activities, which was a major issue, is now history under the Anchor Borrowers Programme adding that women have registered and they have been receiving all that which the men received.

Similarly, for Hajiya Rabi Bature of Karaye local government, the scheme is the catalyst they have been waiting for to ignite their full participation in agriculture. According to her,  though the scheme has some mistakes here and there, the main, positive issue is engaging women with equal opportunities as the men.

Though we could not get the CBN authorities to speak on some of the issues raised about the Anchor Borrowers Programme as at press time, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, speaking at the National Cooperative Financing Agency of Nigeria (CFAN) summit held in Abuja recently, said his ministry will help women and co-operatives to access the N220 million CBN Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) funds.

The minister, who was represented by the Director of Agribusiness in the ministry, Alhaji Azeez Muyiwa, said most of the fund is dedicated to women and the loans can be gotten at nine percent interest rate.

On the issue of access to fertilisers, our investigation reveals that the federal government started distributing the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) late last year. It came at the wrong time-when farmers were already harvesting their crops, raising concerns of low yield and placing women, who constitute the bulk of smallholder farmers across the country in difficult position as many of them cannot afford the high cost of input.

The Director of Farm Input Supply at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Engineer Ohiari Badmus Jatto, however attributed the delay in early supply of farm inputs to delay in budget passage and the huge debts owed agro-dealers by the Jonathan administration and inherited by the Buhari government.