The President of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Arch. Kabir Ibrahim, has called on Nigerian banks to give loans to small holder farmers, saying banks should reappraise farmers and not use the experience of the past against them.
Arch Kabir made the call during a phone interview with Blueprint reporter in Abuja, lamenting that some banks are afraid to give loans to farmers because they think farmers don’t pay back loans. He said this may not be because the people don’t want to pay, rather because most of the banks don’t go through credible associations and relies on man known man.
He said the identification of real farmers is paramount, saying the farmers should be access through credible farmers associations like AFAN, but that going through other channeled may lead to not getting the real farmers, hence the loans may not be repaid,
“Getting loan most times depends on who you know in Nigeria, people tend to corrupt every process and aspects of our lives. Some people who are not genuine farmers have people at the top who can support them to get loans from banks and these loans were misapplied and are no repaid, because of that, the records of some banks shows that alots of people who have not paid their debts. There is the Anchor borrowers programme that the CBN itself gives to farmers and we have seem cases of farmers being taken to court and some even imprisoned because of none payment of the loan.
