The Central Bank of Nigeria has released a total of N610.4bn to the banks for farmers under the Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme.

The CBN disclosed this in its economic report for the third quarter report on the performance of the CACS.

Part of the report read, “At end-September 2019, the total amount released since inception by the CBN under the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme to the participating banks for disbursement amounted to N610.4bn for 593 projects, while total amount repaid since inception stood at N368bn at end-June 2019, compared with N338.4bn.”

The apex bank also said a total of N1.21bn loan was guaranteed to 9,752 farmers under the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme in the third quarter of 2019.

It stated that this represented an increase of 41.7 per cent above the level in the preceding quarter, but was 14.6 per cent below the level in the corresponding quarter of 2018.

A subsector analysis showed that food crops received the largest share of N595.5m (49.0 per cent) guaranteed to 5,436 beneficiaries; mixed crops got N221.8m (18.3 per cent) guaranteed to 2,472 beneficiaries; while livestock had N174.5m (14.4 per cent) guaranteed to 690 beneficiaries.

It added that cash crops, fisheries and ‘others’ got N106.5m (8.8 per cent), N84.4m (6.9 per cent) and N31.5m (2.6 per cent), guaranteed to 629, 321 and 204 beneficiaries, respectively.