180, 000 farmers participate in 2021 anchor borrowers’ programs – MAAN Boss

By Achadu Gabriel, Kaduna

The President Maize Association of Nigeria (MAAN) Alhaji Bello Abubakar Annur, said a total of 180,000 people participated in the 2021 Federal Government and Central Bank of Nigeria policy on agriculture titled: “Anchor’ Borrower programs.

Alhaji Abubakar Annur made the marks in an interview with newsmen during the unveiling ceremony of 21 maize pyramid held on Thursday, in Kaduna state.

He said “This is not the first pyramid under the maize association. Is the second one. The first one was held in katsina state last year. This year’s own is done in Kaduna state being the leading state in the maize production this season.

“The number of farmers that participated in this years Anchor Borrower program is 180,000 farmers, for the last year 2021 season.
“According to Anchor Borrower policy after the harvest, we start receiving the payment from the farmers. And the expected total number of tons or bags that we’re supposed to get from them is about 1.25 millions bags of hundred kg for the total repayment.

“But we’ve started received the payment from January which will last up to June. So we are still aggregating. After the unveiling of this pyramid we’re going to distribute all the maize that’s here to the maize millers and maize processors”, he said.

According to him, the association is going to uptake and pay directly to the bank on behalf of the farmers.

“Even now there’s sale sufficiency of the maize in Nigeria because the total number of tons of maize needed from the maize millers in Nigeria is about 16 million tons while the other ones for the domestic use and the other maize processing company is only 4 million tons.
“So, as at last year we produced
20 million tons, which means we’ve now satisfied the demands of all maize milliers and other human consumption.
So with these ones that your seen here, even now, the impact of this pyramid has yielded a very good results, because by the time we’ve raised the pyramid, the price of maize has fall down because before then, price of maize per hundred kg was about 23000 to 25,000 per 100kg.

“But when we started this pyramid other grain Merchants that were hoarding maize started bringing it out because they know that once we release this one to maize millers, the price will crash down.

“While the other maize millers are not going to the market to buy, they’re waiting for this one to buy from us. So now the price has come down. So the other people who are less privilege are buy maize now for 19000 to 20,000, meaning that somewhere the prive is coming down now.