Volume 6 | Issue -14
Volume 6 | Issue -14
Volume 6 | Issue -14
Volume 6 | Issue -14
Volume 6 | Issue -14
This study examines the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme on Rice Production and Food Security in Ebonyi State and how the federal government has used the initiative to ramp up rice production in the country. A questionnaire was used as the research instrument to collect the required data from 442, after deploying a cross-sectional research design and convenience sampling technique. Data collected were examined through pearson’s product moment correlation, t-test and linear regression analyses respectively with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23. This study adopts the human security theory, with focus on food security, which is one of the seven major components of the human security paradigm as its theoretical framework. The human security theory presents us with a heuristic tool for interrogating the central issue of this study. The results of the study revealed a strong significant relationship between the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme and food security in Ebonyi state, which positively affects Nigeria as a whole. The statistical test results show that the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme brought food security to Ebonyi state. This study also showed that the interventions have specifically helped to reduce Nigeria’s rice import bill from US$1.05 billion to US$18.50 million annually. In total, about 13 million direct and indirect jobs have been created as a result of the Bank’s agricultural sector interventions. Study further showed strong linked with poverty reduction among smallholder farmers in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Finally, the study results show that Anchor Borrowers’ Programme has significantly transformed rural smallholder farmers from subsistence to commercial production in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. The study recommends among others that Nigeria's Federal and state governments should ensure sustenance of the programme, unemployed graduates should take advantage of the Anchor Borrowers' Programme, as they have everything to gain and nothing to lose and more of such programmes need to be encouraged in other sectors of the economy in Nigeria, such as education, Real Estate, and Small and Medium Enterprises, to mention but a few.