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Agric sector yet to reach potential despite CBN’s N1tn interventions

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The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed that the agricultural sector continues to struggle despite the massive intervention in the sector.

According to NBS latest GDP report, the agriculture sector grew by only 1.3 percent in real terms in third quarter of 2022.

Although this is an increase of 0.12% points from the corresponding period of 2021and an increase of 0.14% points from the second quarter, the expectations for the sector remains a far cry from expectation.

For instance, the industries sector contribution stood at 8 percent while the service sector growth was at 7.01 percent.

The agricultural activities measured by the NBS include crop production, livestock, forestry, and fishing.

In terms of contribution to the growth of Nigerian economy in the third quarter, NBS said the sector contributed 29.67% to overall GDP in real terms in Q3 2022.

This is lower than the contribution in the third quarter of 2021 which stood at 29.94 percent.

However, on nominal terms the sector grew by 20.07% year-on-year in nominal terms in Q3 2022, showing an increase of 12.13% points from the same quarter of 2021.

Nominal GDP is the Gross Domestic Product without any effect of inflation. Real GDP is the inflation-adjusted GDP.

Crop Production remained the major driver of the sector. This is evident as it accounts for 91.98% of the overall nominal growth of the sector in the

third quarter of 2022.

NBS disclosed that on Quarter-on-Quarter crop production growth stood at 46.07% in the third quarter of 2022.

Part of the report reads, “Agriculture contributed 27.55% to nominal GDP in the third quarter of 2022.

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“This figure was higher than the rate recorded for the third quarter of 2021 and higher than the second quarter of 2022 which recorded 26.57% and 21.90% respectively.”

CBN interventions

Meanwhile, CBN in its last monetary policy committee meeting for November, revealed that between September and October 2022, under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP), it disbursed N41.02 billion to several agricultural projects, bringing the cumulative disbursement under the Programme to N1.06trn.

The apex bank also said that over 4.6 million smallholder farmers cultivating 21 commodities across the country have benefited from the interventions.

Another N0.30 billion was disbursed to finance large-scale agricultural projects under the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS).

“Consequently, the total disbursement under the Scheme for agro-production and agro-processing stands at N745.31 billion for 680 projects,” CBN stated.

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