The Maize Growers, Farmers and Manufacturers Association (MAGFAMAN), has commended Federal Government (FG) for initiating the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) and appealed for its sustainability.

Alhaji Ibrahim Zubairu, the Bauchi Chairman of the Association, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday, in Bauchi.

He commended the ABP initiative, implemented through the Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN), which had helped smallholder maize farmers to attain quality and high production.

He urged the government to sustain the ABP project and the value chain strategy to improve maize production, saying that over 5,000 maize farmers benefited from the ABP in 2020 and had produced enough to meet the demand for maize.

“The Anchor Borrowers’ Programme was initiated in the first instance to help link smallholder farmers to processors, thereby creating viable and sustainable money,” he said, adding that the programme had also created large scale farmers.

He stressed that under the scheme, farmers were provided with fertilizers, seedlings, water pumping machines, insecticides, sprayers and herbicides, through a revolving loan.

“We have received support from the Federal Government’s ABP scheme, we are still receiving support and expecting more of the inputs.

“Farmers became comfortable while cultivating their crops, because there was a market at the end of the day.

“A farmer will not have to struggle to look for who will either buy his products or the pricing, which was also considered in the ABP,” he said.

He urged farmers to embrace the ABP scheme for small-scale, individual and cooperative farmers to boost food production, while appealing to them to pay up their revolving loans so that others could also benefit.