CBN Partners AGRA To Boost Agriculture

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it has signed an agreement with the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to develop a mechanism to boost the agricultural sector.

CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi made the announcement in the apex bank’s monthly journal, “Cenbank News”, saying the mechanism would serve the needs of all farmers.

According to him, the agreement will be valuable to smallholder farmers, agro-processors, agribusinesses and input suppliers in the agricultural value chain.

Sanusi said that with the agreement, the CBN would work with AGRA, the UN Industrial Development Organisation and other key stakeholders in Nigeria to develop an innovative financing mechanism to meet the target.

Tide’s source reports that the financing mechanism is tagged “Nigeria Incentive-based Risk-Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL)”.

The bank governor said the agreement was aimed at providing farmers with affordable financial products while reducing the risk of loans to farmers under alternative financing programmes.

He said the initiative would build the capacity of banks to expand lending to agriculture and to deploy risk-sharing instruments to lower the risk of lending.

“The CBN has embarked on major reforms of the banking sector to bring it in line with our priorities for sustainable economic growth. Agriculture is one of the key sectors.

“Financing agriculture is central to Nigeria’s economic future. NIRSAL is our home-grown instrument for achieving this transformation,” Sanusi added.