NIGERIA
NEXT LEVEL
102
Setting The Example In The Quest For Food Security As a result of the implementation of farmer incentives and a total ban on rice importation, record breaking rice production has been secured, placing Nigeria as Africa’s largest producer of rice in 2019.
Rice is the basis of most of Nigeria’s popular dishes and the key ingredient to its national dish, Jollof Rice, making Nigeria Africa’s leading consumer of rice. So, when President Buhari’s administration began looking at agriculture as a means to diversify the nation’s economy, it made sense to start off by ramping up domestic production of its main staple food to curtail its hefty rice import bill. A complete ban imposed by the government on rice importation and the creation of an ecosystem linking out-growers to local processors, while training farmers, has managed to save the government a breathtaking total of US$800 million in 2018, according to the Bank of Agriculture (BoA). Through the implementation of a thorough and in-depth scheme at enhancing rice production, the rice revolution is being tackled at all angles, and the success has been resounding.
The Anchor Borrowers Scheme (ABP) The Anchor Borrower’s Scheme (ABP) is the government’s flagship agriculture programme and is at the heart of the rice revolution’s achievements and the mass production of rice currently underway. Launched by President Buhari in November 17, 2015, the ABP is a collaboration between the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Ministry of Agriculture, creating a link between anchor companies involved in the processing, and small holder farmers in order to encourage and fast track rice cultivation. Through incentives, such as subsidised loans and credit facilities, the provision of farm inputs (affordable fertilisers, seedlings, water pumps) in kind and cash to small holder farmers, free farm land and tax rebates production is boosted and the input supply to agro-processors guaranteed. With the disbursement of NGN 40 billion to over
