FG to explore use of intervention funds in Agriculture

The Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, has said the Federal Government is set to explore the use of intervention funds in agriculture and its value chains.
The Vice President, who said this at the forum attended by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh; Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah; officials of government agencies and stakeholders in the agriculture sector, said: “I’m Chairing a Committee to look at how to not only use intervention funds, but how to monitor the use of intervention funds.”
Osinbajo, who also disclosed that the Federal Government would not “bring down interest rate overnight,” stressed that the “way out is by some kind of intervention and that’s what the President has asked that we do.”

The threats…

Osinbajo also maintained that government was refining the anchor borrowers’ programme and other intervention funds for agriculture with a view to making them more effective in assisting farmers.
Furthermore, he said the issue of smuggling of agricultural produce into the country remains an empiric threat to the country’s agricultural sector.
The Vice President identified low duties paid in some of the neighbouring countries as one of the factors that encourage the smuggling of rice and other agricultural produce through them into Nigeria.