Maize harvest excites association in Anambra
By Moses Uwagbale
The Maize Association of Nigeria (MAAN) has expressed delight with its first harvest of maize cultivated under the Central Bank Anchor Borrowers Programme in Anambra.
The state chairman of the association, Mr Simeon Nwafor, said on Wednesday in Onitsha that it harvested over 136 bags of 100kg of maize.
The association registered for the CBN-ABP in 2019 but commenced farming in 2020 due to late arrival of farming inputs.
A total of 535 maize farmers received inputs worth over N89 million under the Programme, for the 2020 wet farming season in the state.
“This is our first experiment and it is the highest in the South-East and almost the third in the country.
“You may not compare us with states like Katsina, but from our output, it is quite encouraging.
“We didn’t expect that we would record such bumper harvest after suffering drought sometime in August,” he said.
According to him, arrangement is already ongoing with CBN for the off-take of the outputs.
However, he said members were still faced with the challenges of mechanization, late arrival of inputs and provision of ineffective agro-chemicals as well as maize seedlings.
“Most of our labour were manual while most of the chemicals given to us were not effective as expected.
“If these challenges could be resolved before the next farming season, we hope to achieve more then,” he said.