By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, has stated that the government is targeting the year 2022 to gain self-sufficiency in maize production.
Emefiele said this on Thursday in Katsina at the launch of the 2021 maize wet season farming and first maize pyramid in Nigeria.
Emefiele said that the CBN would support farmers to cultivate over 500,000 hectares of maize in 2021, through the anchor borrower programme.
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The CBN governor said that would be achieved through synergy between stakeholders and the resilience of farmers.
“This event symbolises our commitment towards enabling self sufficiency in maize production by 2022 in Nigeria,” he stressed, adding that maize was one of the priority crops under the anchor borrower programme.
He said that Nigeria, with a population of about 200 million people, must end food import which has continued to drain the country’s external reserve, creating unemployment and disruption in commodity value chain.
In his remarks, the National President of Maize Association of Nigeria, Dr Bello Abubakar, urged farmers to repay loans granted to them in good time for the progress of the programme.
Abubakar said that the maize pyramid was made from the crops refunded by farmers for the loan collected under the anchor borrower programme.
