About 1,000 rural cassava farmers in Kogi State have been selected as beneficiaries of a loan facility from Nigeria Agricultural Payment Initiative Scheme.
The
pilot disbursement of the loan and grant to rural farmers through e-wallet
system was held in Lokoja on Friday.
Young
farmers and government officials gathered in the Glass Hall of the Government
House in Lokoja for the launch of the pilot disbursement.
The
State government said the loan would assist the farmers in boosting
agricultural produce which the government would in turn buy from them.
Explaining
how the programme works, the Special Adviser on Agriculture and the managing
Director of ADP, Professor Dominic Akpa, said that 1,000 farmers would benefit.
While
calling on the Governor to provide the needed political will to ensure the
sustainability of the scheme, the President of Kogi Cluster Farms Development
Union, Mr Alfred Okeme, said the NAPI Wallet System was a strong and
transparent medium that would provide an End-to-end Payment Recipient System
among all the agricultural business actors.
A
short play-let was also dramatised by the Kogi Art Council to enlighten the
audience on the importance of the programme.
While
launching the scheme and giving out agricultural produce to the beneficiaries,
Captain Wada in his speech said the Kogi State government had been able to
validate over 145 rural farmers who are being issue with a small cheap identity
card.
The
identity card will be used as a host for farmers’ ‘bio-metric farmland’, to
form group information and create access to a banquet of agricultural services
made available by both the Federal and State government.
He
then congratulated the beneficiaries and urged them to utilise the loan for
what it is meant for.
Source:
http://leadership.ng/business/376131/accessible-agricultural-loans
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