The Central Bank of Nigeria said it provided a total of N1.99bn to 12,405 farmers under its Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme during the second quarter of this year.
The ACGS is an initiative of the CBN set up to fast-track the development of the agricultural sector of the economy by providing credit facilities to farmers at a single digit interest rate.
It was aimed at enhancing national food security by increasing food supply and effecting lower agricultural product prices.
In a report for the sector prepared by the CBN for the second quarter of this year, it said that the amount represented a 21.6 per cent increase above the level in the preceding quarter.
In terms of sub-sectoral analysis, the report showed that food crops with 9,607 beneficiaries got the largest share of N1.37bn, representing 68.5 per cent.
This was followed by livestock with 1,149 beneficiaries getting the sum of N350.6 or 17.6 per cent while fisheries had N89.5m, representing 4.5 per cent given to 385 beneficiaries.
The rest are cash crop where N83.9m was guaranteed to 538 beneficiaries, mixed crop sub-sector which had N68.7m guaranteed to 414 beneficiaries, while N31.1m was guaranteed to 312 beneficiaries under a category referred to as “others.”
An analysis based on the disbursement by states showed that 31 states and the Federal Capital Territory benefited from the scheme in the review period, with the highest and lowest sums of N518m (26 per cent) and N0.7m (0.05 per cent) guaranteed to Edo and Taraba states, respectively,
The report read in part, “Available data indicated that agricultural activities increased significantly during the second quarter of 2016 due to well distributed rainfall in most parts of the country.”
