Business
‘Agriculture, Panacea To Nigeria’s Economic Growth’
Agriculture has been described as one of Nigeria’s most powerful tools in addressing the challenges of creating more employment, better public health and greater economic growth.
The Managing Director of Duromu Farms Limited, Dayo Olu, in an interview with The Tide, stated this shortly after an Agric-business Forum organised in Port Harcourt last Saturday.
According to him, the need to focus on agriculture stems from the fact that the sector accounts for 70 per cent of the people in the rural areas, the growing demand for food and more importantly, about 44 per cent contribution to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product.
He stressed that the transformation of agriculture would stimulate small and medium-sized industries that are known to be the engine room of economic growth.
Olu noted that achieving economic transformation would require more investments in agricultural research and development and the development infrastructure. Also, that Nigeria needs to build its defence against biological threats to crops just as it is being done for the military.
He posited that agriculture in Nigeria in recent decades has been constrained by weak institutions and inadequate infrastructure.
“These constraints are well known. Less known are the limited application of technologies, the low skill base in the sector, and its aging population. The young are fleeing rural areas and the production side of the sector.
Similarly, financial institutions view the agricultural sector as risky and so it deserves a very small portion of commercial credit,” he said.
According to him, getting the young people interested in agriculture and developing a supportive financial system to facilitate the access of farmers, traders and processors to credit, could go a long way in addressing several national needs.
He described the agricultural setting in Nigeria as ‘dynamic’, explaining that the problems and challenges facing agriculture could be turned to profits.
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.
