Textile Industry: CBN to Sponsor 100,000 Cotton Farmers

• Textile Industry: CBN to Sponsor 100,000 Cotton Farmers

In an effort to resuscitate the textile sector, the Central Bank of Nigeria has partnered with the National Cotton Association of Nigeria to sponsor 100,000 cotton farmers for the 2019 season.

The farmers would be sponsored to farm 100,000 hectares of cotton for the 2019 season.

The apex bank said the move would help revive the sector and support job creation in the country.

The plan stated in the proposal for revamping the cotton, garment and textile sector in Nigeria would be executed by the Textile Revival Implementation Committee inaugurated by Mr Godwin Emefiele, the CBN Governor.

Members of the committee are selected from the CBN; Kaduna State government; ministries of Power, Works and Housing; Finance; Agriculture and Rural Development; Commerce and Industry and the Nigeria Customs Service.

The document also showed the central bank is already discussing how to increase the hectares to 200,000 hectares by the 2020 planting season.

It said improved cotton seeds had been procured with a minimum yield of 2.5 metric tonnes per hectares as against the 1.5 metric tonnes average in Nigeria.

It read in part, “Figures from the ministry of trade show that in its boom years, the industry used to net an average of $2bn annually, across the value chain.

“The industry provided about one million direct jobs and over two million indirect jobs and hence accounting for about 60 per cent of the textile industry capacity in West Africa.”