Bank of Agriculture for restructuring --- Ogbeh


 The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, said on Tuesday said that the Federal Government had concluded arrangements to restructure the Bank of Agriculture(BOA), to facilitate economic diversification in the country.
Ogbeh said this at a Town Hall Meeting and Policy Dialogue for Good Governance organised by the Alumni Association of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (AANI) in Abuja.
The meeting, with the theme; `` Towards Effective Implementation of the 2016 Budget, `` was organised by the association in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture.
The minister said that the restructuring of the bank would provide opportunity for real farmers to become stakeholders in its operation, with a view to boosting agricultural activities.
Ogbeh said that the reform would evolve a strategy and policy that would reduce the bank interest down to five per cent, in order to stimulate food production in the country.
`` We are about to restructure the Bank of Agriculture to ensure that every farmer becomes a stakeholder in the bank.
`` We are coming up with a policy that will reduce the Bank of Agriculture interest rate to five per cent in order to encourage farmers to excel in agriculture.''
Ogbeh also said that the Federal Government would embark on awareness campaign to educate farmers on the type of fertilisers that would be suitable for their crops.
He said that the a handbook produced by the ministry to educate farmers on the type of fertilisers to use would soon be made public.
On the farmers’/herdsmen clashes, the minister stressed the need for the creation of grazing reserve for headsmen as solution to the problem.
``When you give herdsmen grazing reserve, water and others things, the crisis will naturally end,'' Ogbeh said.
The minister, therefore, urged all Nigerians to embrace farming as a solution to the nation’s economic problem, adding that the agricultural sector had the ability to get the Nigerian economy back on track.
`` I am inviting every one of you to farm, with a view to adding value to our nation’s economy, `` he said

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