The Central Bank of Nigeria has released N16bn for Anchor Borrowers’ Programme while receiving applause for its new foreign exchange policy restricting forex access for maize imports.
The Maize Association of Nigeria said the CBN acted in the best interest of the economy, urging farmers to explore the opportunities presented by the restrictions to increase production capacity.
The President of the association, Abubakar Bello, while speaking at a news conference in Abuja, listed the achievements of the last planting season.
According to him, though the association is targeting about 25m metric tonnes of maize production in this year’s planting season, this might suffer about 25 per cent reduction due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said maize farmers cultivated about 250,000 hectares of maize in this year’s rainy season.
