The North-East Commodity Association (NECAS) at the weekend distributed 182 motorcycles to agricultural extension workers in the north-east sub-region, to help in debt recovery and extension services.
North East Trust reports that at the onset of the raining season, the NECAS in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had distributed farm inputs worth over N12 billion to about 27, 000 farmers in the six states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe.
Speaking at the flag-off of the distribution, the National President of the association, Alhaji Sadiq Umar Daware, said the motorcycles and five motor vehicles were distributed to the extension workers for recovery of loan obtained by the farmers under the CBN’s anchor-borrowers programme.
He said that apart from recovering the loans, the vehicles and motorbikes would help the extension workers to reach farmers across the sub-region with useful and practical information for increased production.
Daware added under the agreement NECAS had with the CBN, the farmers were expected to pay at least 80 per cent of the loan obtained with their farm produce in the first year of the farming circle.
In his remark, Development Finance Officer, CBN Gombe, Alhaji Abdullahi Baba Isa, said the fund given to the farmers under the anchor borrowers programme was not free, and appealed to the beneficiaries to pay back on time to enable others access the loan.
He said the scheme was meant to be given to only those willing to repay the loan within the stipulated time.
