793 Farmers In Edo Receive N86m Agric Loan  
 

30th July 2008

No fewer than 793 farmers in Edo have received agricultural loans totalling N86 million in the last one year.

The loan is under a private sector scheme, Agricultural Rural Development Initiative (LARDI) and the Lift Above Poverty Organisation (LAPO), a Benin-based micro finance group.

The Programme Manager of LARDI, Mr. Andrew Udah, has said in Benin City that the initiative had gone beyond loans disbursement as it also covered extension services to the benefiting farmers.

He said that the mandate of LARDI, which started in 2007, was to address challenges that affected rural communities.

He said that such challenges included threat to food security, lack of extension services, both of which had increased poverty among the people.

Udah added that private intervention by LAPO became necessary because of the enormous constraints faced by rural farmers for returns on investments.

These constraints, he outlined, included lack of access to markets for good bargains for produce, inadequate and affordable financing arrangements as well as lack of storage facilities.

"Our goals at LARDI are to improve the quality of life of the rural dwellers through committed support for activities that will energise the rural economy,'' he said.

He said that apart from food crop cultivation, the programme had also encouraged poultry farmers to revive their declining practice due to high mortality of their birds in recent times.

"We render our clients and beneficiaries on-farm support, material support, training services as well as storage facilities as a way of boosting agricultural productivity in the country,'' he added.

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