The Maize Association of Nigeria (MAAN) has taken its nationwide strategic meeting with maize farmers and stakeholders on the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Anchor Borrowers loan recovery to North East and parts of North West Nigeria.

The National President, Dr. Bello Annoor Abubakar, disclosed this on Monday in a statement issued to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

Abubakar said the objective of the meeting was to review the impact of the loan on food security, deliberate on loan repayment strategies and the way forward for maize farmers.

He said the achievement of the loan in maize production and the lives of farmers in the country could not be over emphasized in spite of the border closure by the Nigerian government and effects of the COVID-19 lockdown of Nigeria on food.

“When the president closed the border, he said we must produce what we eat and eat what we produce, despite the closure we ate what we produced especially maize.”

“Before the borders could be reopened, the issue of COVID-19 came up and there was lockdown globally, so we spent about 2 years without food importation and there’s no food insecurity,

“Even with the ban on maize importation and there was outcry in some quarters about the scarcity of maize, we stepped up and produced and now we have enough and even excess maize.”

While admonishing the state chairmen of the association on the importance of repaying the loans, the president said the loan had achieved a lot and farmers should not misuse the opportunity available.

He said the loan had gone a long way in ensuring Nigeria attained its national maize demands, increased the number of fertilizer blending plants due to demand by farmers, increased the number of maize processing mills and significantly contributed to the growth of the country’s GDP.

Abubakar said the process was not without some level of challenges as maize farmers experienced drought, flood, Covid-19, insecurity (Banditry, kidnappers, Boko Haram etc) affected production.

He said in some areas, farmers could not go to the farm while in other places those who were able to farm were either made to pay high taxes to the insurgents and bandits, outrightly kidnapped for ransom or have their farms burnt despite paying what was demanded.

He also mentioned late disbursement which led to late distribution of inputs to farmers and nonpayment of insurance claims by the insurance companies were part of the challenges farmers faced.

He said that in spite of the challenges, “loan is a loan and it must be repaid and the association has taken very strict measures to ensure full repayment of these loans”.

The meetings had in attendance representatives of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Bank of Agriculture (BoA), Nigeria Agricultural Insurance Corporation, Unity Bank of Nigeria and MAAN state chairmen from the region and National Executives.