ANCHOR BORROWERS POLICY AND FOOD SECURITY IN NIGERIA: A CRITICAL REVIEW

Abstract

Anchor Borrowers Programme is an initiative launched in 2015 by the Central Bank of Nigeria with laudable objectives to ensure food security, stabilization of economy and reducing reliance on crude oil. It is factual that Nigeria since independence has launched several unsuccessful agricultural programmes, which makes it imperative to ascertain how differently Anchor Borrowers Programme has operated in turning around the fortunes of the agricultural sector, especially in thearea of achieving food security. The study is qualitative as it relied on secondary sources for data obtained from official sources and other empirical studies. The study reveals that the programme failed in realizing food security as its main focus is on rice production while underfunding other key grain and cereal farm produce. Insecurity, flood, pests and administrative bureaucracy, and above all, the lack of monitoring and evaluation plan were identified as major challenges of the programme. The paper concluded that the identified challenges are hinged on the poor planning and implementation of the programme, and recommended amongst others that the programme should be redesigned to be inclusive and robust in the sense of capturing systematic approach of dealing with the observed challenges, while Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should ensure effective monitoring and evaluation of the programme through special designated commercial banks.