CBN intervention has reduced importation of rice from Thailand – Emefiele

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has stated that its intervention in the Nigerian agricultural sector has led to the massive reduction in imported rice from Thailand from 2014 when Thailand exported 1.3 million metric tons of rice to Nigeria to just 58,000 metric tons at the end of 2021.

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, stated this on Tuesday at the unveiling of the FCT mega rice pyramids under the RIFAN-CBN Anchor Borrowers’ Programme.

The CBN’s Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) was started in November 2015 to provide aid to farmers and influence the value chain of various commodities in Nigeria. The CBN has carried out interventions aimed at sustaining recovery of output growth and addressing the downside risks to other external and domestic shocks to the economy.

Emefiele noted that ABP has also catalyzed the rural economy and has built a sustainable framework for financing smallholder farmers in Nigeria.

In his words, “The Programme has developed an ecosystem among all nodes of the agricultural value chain and these linkages can be better optimized through synergy among all stakeholders.

“We are delighted that these efforts have yielded fruits in not just increasing the availability of rice, but also in moderating prices, reducing imports and increasing job creation in the country. For example, Thailand alone exported 1.3 million metric tons of rice to Nigeria in 2014.”

The CBN Governor also noted that Output Productivity per hectare has improved within 6 years, saying, “Beyond increasing our national output from about 5.4 million metric tons in 2015 to over 9 million metric tons in 2021, we have also significantly improved the productivity per hectare of the smallholder farmer from about 2.4 metric tons per hectare in 2015 to between about 5 metric tons per ha in 2021.”