The CBN anchor borrowers programme distributed inputs to 156 members of the Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria (CFAN) on Thursday in Ibadan. The cocoa farmers received herbicides, fungicide, insecticides and fertilisers.
CFAN National Present, Comrade Adeola Adegoke, told newsmen during the ceremony that the inputs would enable each beneficiary to increase production from the average of 350 kilograms to 600 kilogrammes. He said that the country could reduce its dependence on oil and gas revenues if cocoa farmers got adequate funding and support from government and from the private sector as being done in a country like Ghana.
Adegoke said that 1,221 cocoa farmers in the 10 cocoa producing states of Ondo, Cross River, Edo, Ekiti, Osun, Kwara, Ogun, Delta, Abia and Oyo would benefit from the programme. According to him, the distribution, which is for the first batch, is strictly for genuine, active and practicing cocoa farmers.
In his remarks, the representative of Development Finance Office, CBN, Ibadan, Mr. Adeola Adegbesan, said that the programme was also designed to link farmers with up-taker processors of cocoa beans. He said that the gesture was to create employment, reduce input costs, train farmers and build their capacities. One of the beneficiaries, Chief Oluwasegun Adebayo, commended the CBN and Federal Government for the kind gesture.