By Abdallah el-Kurebe
Two years after the Federal Government introduced the Commercial Agricultural  Credit  Scheme, CACS in 2009 in order to provide food security, diversify revenue  sources and  create more jobs and raw materials for the nation’s import dependent  industries, the  CBN/CACS agricultural loan disbursement was flagged off in  Sokoto, Monday by Governor  Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko.

fertilizer farm

Flagging off the loan disbursement, Governor Magatakarda registered his dismay  that two  years after the introduction of the scheme by the CBN, farmers in the  state were only just  enjoying from it, even after the state government offered  to stand as guarantors to all benefitting farmers in the state.

He stated that 638 cooperative farmers were drawn from the 23 local government  areas of the  state and such cooperative farmers were identified by the Ministry  of Agriculture, Sokoto  State Agricultural Development Project, SADP; IFAD,  FADAMA III, Ministry of Animal  Health and Fisheries and Agricultural Farmers Association of Nigeria, AFAN. Of these cooperative groups are small, medium and big farming enterprises.

Governor  Wamakko promised to support farmers with seedlings, including those of  cassava and potato for distribution, free to farmers.
Serving as the Intermediating Bank to channel the funds from the Central Bank of Nigeria for lending to cooperative farmers and other agro_allied enterprises along the  agro_value chain business, Fidelity Bank Plc provided One Billion  naira to be disbursed to six  hundred and thirty_eight cooperative farmers in  Sokoto state.

Disbursing the loans, the Managing Director of the Bank, Mr. Reginald Ihejiahi represented by  its Regional Director, North, Mallam Idris Yakubu disclosed that “Sokoto state government   had successfully met the bank’s Minimum Risk Acceptance  Criteria and Due Diligence and has emerged as one of the state governments that is accessing the funds through Fidelity Bank  Plc.”

However, Yakubu warned, “There would be periodic Project Monitoring and  Eveluation by a team comprising of officials of Fidelity Bank, CBN, Federal  Ministry of Agriculture and Rural  Development and other agencies.”

Commiserating with the recent flood victims, the bank donating some relief materials, which  included food items, mattresses, blankets, mats, buckets and  kettles for distribution to victims of the disaster.