By Babajide Komolafe

BANKS’ lending to farmers under the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme, ACGS, dropped by 19 percent month-on-month (m/m)  to N442 million in September.

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, disclosed this in its Economic report for October released last week.

The Central Bank of Nigeria head office in Abuja.

The report stated: “The Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme (ACGS) guaranteed a total of N442.22 million to 3,055 farmers in the review period. The amount represented a decline of 19.2 per cent and 18.3 per cent, below the respective levels in the preceding month and the corresponding period of 2017. “Sub-sectoral analysis showed that food crops got the largest share of N205.8 million (46.5 per cent) guaranteed to 1,410 beneficiaries, followed by the livestock sub-sector, N74.8 million (16.9 percent), guaranteed to 324 beneficiaries. Also, the sum of N70.1 million was disbursed to mixed cropping (15.9 percent), guaranteed to 913 beneficiaries; while fisheries, cash crops and “Others” got N43  million (9.7 percent), N39.8 million (9.0 percent) and N 8.7 million (1.97 percent) guaranteed to 116, 248 and 44 beneficiaries, respectively.

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“Analysis by state revealed that 28 states and the Federal Capital Territory benefited from the scheme in the period under review, with the highest and lowest sums of N47.60 million (10.8 percent ) and N1.05 million (0.2 percent) guaranteed to farmers in Ogun and Nassarawa states, respectively.

“As at September 20, 2018, the total amount released since inception by the CBN under the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS) to participating banks for disbursement, amounted to ?577.35 billion in respect of 568 projects.”