Wheat Production: CBN Disburses N41bn Through Heritage Bank For Dry Season Farming

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is channeling a whopping sum of N41billion, through Heritage Bank Plc to farmers across states in the federation, for the expansion of wheat production project, in a bid to meet the high demand and mitigate poor production capacity of the commodity in the country.

Speaking on this laudable initiative, the Governor of CBN, Godwin Emefiele said the move was part of the apex bank’s intervention to address the challenges in Wheat value chain, thereby increasing the domestic production of wheat and closing the wide supply gap inherited in Nigeria agricultural space.

“Following the successes in the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP), the apex bank decided to extend the gains recorded in rice and maize value chains to wheat production.” The disbursed fund is to consummate the expansion of Wheat Seed Multiplication Project, as part of the CBN’s Brown Revolution Initiative, an intervention programme to flag-off and support the commencement of dry season wheat farming across States in Nigeria.” The CBN governor was quoted in a statement.

According to the statement, the programme would be implemented in 15 states on about 180,000 hectares of land, will benefit over 150,000 farmers in the country.

With the intervention project, the apex bank is looking to save about $2 billion spent on importing five million metric tons of wheat annually through.

In the words of the apex bank governor, “Wheat is the third most widely consumed grain in Nigeria after maize and rice. It is estimated that the country only produces about one per cent (63,000 metric tons) of the 5-6 million metric tons of the commodity consumed annually in Nigeria,”

“This enormous demand-supply gap is bridged with over $2 billion spent annually on wheat importation. This has made wheat the second highest contributor to the country’s food import bill.”

“Given the high growth rate of the country’s population and the demographic structure, the demand for wheat is projected to continue to rise. This can only intensify pressure on the country’s reserves unless we take a decisive step to grow wheat locally,” Emefiele said.

The programme is expected to add about 2,000 metric tons of seeds to the nation’s national seed stock and potentially add 750,000 metric tonnes of wheat to national output annually through rain-fed wheat cultivation in Plateau, Mambila Plateau and Obudu Plateau in the short-term.

Meanwhile, Heritage Bank has adopted more functional measures by registering the wheat farmers on the  Lagos Commodities and Futures Exchange (LCFE) platform for due diligence on loan administration, monitoring and recovery, which would bring about increase in the domestic production of wheat.

In agreement with the CBN Governor’s view, the MD/CEO of Heritage Bank, Ifie Sekibo, said the Brown Revolution Initiative would help reduce the nation’s food import bill by increasing wheat production, creating market linkages between smallholders farmers and Anchors/Processors, creating an ecosystem that drives value chain financing, improving access to credit by the smallholder farmers and developing credit history through the scheme and many more.

Narrating some of the feats achieved so far, Sekibo who was represented by the Divisional Head, Agribusiness, Natural Resources & Project Development, Heritage Bank, Olugbenga Awe, said the bank partnered with CBN to ensure wheat planting on all round season, wet and dry. “What we want to achieve is to end importation of seeds and make Nigeria self-sufficient in wheat production.”

“We are working with about 30 firms focusing only on seed production and also working with CBN to make sure we register all farmers. We believe working with LCFE will move Nigerian farmers from informal approach to a structured approach”, Sekibo said.

He further explained that whilst riding on the success of the wet season, “The bank decided to focus on the dry season which comes naturally to our people. As a bank, we are working on two things; one is to ensure the continuous multiplication of seeds and the other is to focus on the grains.”