PHOTO: www.worldbank.org
The Federal Government may have begun the experimentation of rural empowerment policy that would turn subsistence farmers into commercial ones in Nigeria.
The development is to empower the targeted farmers via soft loans with little collateral, provide market for their produce and use them as pioneers of the agribusiness policy of the Federal Government.
Already, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, (FMARD), some commercial banks and Agricultural and Management Training Institute (ARMTI), Ilorin, have been penciled down for the programme.
According to the Executive Director, ARMTI, Mr. Anthony Njoku, while distributing cheques valued at N2Million to members of two communities in Kwara State (Omomere-Oja and Amoyo), the fund was in the Capital Budget of the institute with support of the FMARD.