Unity Bank Partners Cotton Farmers
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in partnership with Unity Bank and the National Cotton Association of Nigeria (NACOTAN), has flagged off distribution of Seeds/inputs supplies to Cotton farmers for the 2019 planting season nationwide.
The distribution of cotton input supplies to farmers is part of the Anchor Borrowers Programme of the CBN operated as an on-lending scheme with participating financial institutions packaged to channel financing support to beneficiaries in the Agric sector. Commenting on the development, the Executive Director, Corporate Planning & Compliance, Unity Bank Plc, Usman Abdulqadir, was quoted in a statement from the bank to have said the partnership was on account of the lender’s strong participation in the programme aimed at rebuilding customer confidence, alleviating poverty through food and cash crops production to make Nigeria self-sufficient in food and diversifying the economy.
He further said: “Unity Bank’s strategy is to bank the agricultural value chain. Therefore, we finance primary production, agricultural processing as well as commodity trading.
“We also support agricultural mechanisation, agricultural services and the procurement of inputs and implements.”
Speaking further, he said: “What is most noteworthy is that while other banks basically concentrate on lending to big value end of the agriculture value chain such as the flour and rice millers, Unity Bank does not leave out the small holder farmers who are in primary production.”
Continuing, the bank in the statement added: “Unity Bank’s involvement in the ABP has thus created huge social and economic impact on the income of households involving over 500,000 participating small-holder farmers, thereby boosting not only the Gross Domestic Product and reducing unemployment but also helping to end the perennial dissipation of scarce foreign exchange to import food.”
The National President of NACOTAN, Mr. Anibe Achimugu, said the Unity Bank/ CBN programme would assist the association in sourcing the right seeds to be delivered to cotton farmers at the right time.
He also said the association produced an estimated seed cotton of between 60,000 and 80,000 tonnes in 2018, hoping that this figure will be surpassed in 2019.