Veteran journalist and royal father in Imo State, His Royal Highness, Eze Geo Anika, has called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to review its ongoing agricultural loan policy.
Anika, a former senior staff of Radio Nigeria, is the current traditional ruler of Atta ancient kingdom in Ikeduru local government area of the state.
He told journalists in his palace that the requirement of a large expanse of land as a condition for qualification for an agric loan in certain areas of agriculture was detrimental to mass participation in food production in the country.
The monarch maintained that such a policy must be reviewed if the Apex bank wants most people of the Southeast to participate in improving agriculture and food production.
While describing agriculture as key to the economic development of any nation, Anika attributed the low participation of the Southeast in the Central Bank CBN agric loans to the condition.
According to him, “The requirement of the huge expanse of land by the CBN as qualification for loans in certain aspects of agriculture was a big hindrance to farmers from the Southeast to access agric loans offered by the Apex bank.
“I’m calling on the CBN to remove the requirement of a large expanse of land in most cases to accommodate the people of Southeast region which does not have large expanses of land as the North where a farmer can own large expanse of land for agriculture.
“I think the CBN should rather accept the merger of different fragments of lands owned by either individual farmers or communities to make up for a single stretch of large expanse of land which the bank sets as one of its criteria.”
