Farmers call for resuscitation of Presidential Committee on Rubber

Rubber farmers in Cross River State have called on the federal government to revive the Presidential Committee on Rubber.

Speaking to journalists on the exclusion of rubber from the list of cash crops that are to enjoy low interest bank loans as well as moratorium, the Managing Director of Imoniyamme Holdings Ltd, Mrs Ufuoma Obrutse, said that the resuscitation of the  committee would ensure that  the interest of rubber farmers in the country was protected.

The crops that are to enjoy a single digit loan interest rate, as announced by the Bankers’ Committee, include cocoa, cashew, shea butter, palm oil and rice.

She explained that there are nine states in the southern part of the country, considered as the rubber belt region, which have high concentration of rubber plantations.

This, she said, meant that the sector could not be overlooked or marginalised.

“Rubber is a longstanding economic crop which should be accommodated in any incentive consideration. We can generate employment for over 100,000 directly and indirectly in the Niger Delta region. This can certainly go a long way to calm restive youths as well as earn huge foreign exchange.

“It is important for the federal government to have a rethink over excluding rubber, which engages a great number of Nigerians directly and indirectly, from the list.

“Federal government should extend the intervention fund to rubber if they do not want it to go extinct. We are already facing huge challenges and to exclude us may mean that the intention is to further dampen us whereas we are a more reliable economic bolsters,” Obrutse said.