NIRSAL facilitates N105bn for farmers, creates 16,000 agro geo-cooperatives

The Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System For Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) said Monday that since its inception, it has facilitated N105billion for the pre-upstream, upstream, midstream and downstream of the country’s agricultural value chain.

The intervention, which was sought from public and private sources, according to NIRSAL, had created over 400,000 jobs and impacted two million lives.

The organisation’s Head of Project Monitoring, Reporting and Remediation in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr. Ayo Olaleye, who stated  this recently in Abuja, said as an institution created by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), NIRSAL would continue to boost farmers’ productivities and encourage financiers lend to agriculture.

He said: “Since its inception, NIRSAL Plc has facilitated over N105billion across the pre-upstream, upstream, midstream and downstream segments of the agricultural value chain in Nigeria from public and private sources of finance.

“This finance has had a profound positive socio-economic consequence, resulting in creation of over 400,000 jobs and impacting two million lives positively.

Olaleye stated that the organisation had restructured farmers nationwide with the creation of 16,000 Agro Geo-Cooperatives that is made up of eight million farmers.

“At the forefront of its finance facilitation drive is the NIRSAL Agro Geo-Cooperatives formation process through NIRSAL plc  is structuring farmers by creating 16,000 Agro Geo-Cooperatives made up of 8million farmers cultivating 4million hectares of farmland. To date, over 452 Agro Geo-Cooperatives covering over 270,000 hectares of land  benefited from the process through Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP),” he said.

To this end, he said rice, maize, cassava, sesame and soyabean farmers in Nasarawa, Niger, Kogi  Benue, and the FCT have been positioned for increased yields and improvement in livelihoods following NIRSAL’s support for 2020 wet season farming activities under ABP.

The Head, CBN’s Development Finance Office (DFO) in the FCT, Mr. Nuhu Muazu, who was represented by Mr. Nmadu Benjamin, encouraged farmers to key into ABP and ensure they repay the loan on time.

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