CBN to show universities how to make money from agriculture

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has offered to show universities how to make money from agriculture.

But before steps can be taken, the apex bank has charged universities and graduating students to come up with breakthrough solutions that would improve agricultural productivity.

CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, made this charge in Makurdi, Benue State, when he delivered the convocation lecture of the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi.

Emefiele said the apex bank has pumped in a lot of money into agriculture as a result, the CBN he said “would like to see how the university community and indeed the graduating students can leverage their knowledge and research to come up with similar breakthrough solutions that would improve productivity of our agricultural sector”

The CBN, he said, will “provide a commercial outlook to research breakthroughs on improved seeds by ensuring a guaranteed market through off-take of those seeds for adoption by our farmers under the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP)”.

Emefiele noted that “the seed industry is a multi-billion dollars investment, which offers a low hanging fruit in a potential collaborative effort between the CBN and the university community”