CBN to revolutionise agriculture through NIRSAL – Hameed

The Central Bank of Nigeria says the strategic motive of its Nigeria Incentivebased Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) is to trigger agricultural industrialization in the country, just as NIRSAL has guaranteed 224 projects worth N53 billion for farmers in the country in past the two and half years .

NIRSAL also gave interest drawback support worth N698 million to farmers within the period,

the Head of NIRSAL’s Project Implementation Office and Development Finance Department, Mr. Aliyu Hameed said at a sensitization workshop on the financing framework in Sokoto yesterday.

Hameed said NIRSAL encouraged up to 50 percent support for primary producers, but noted that in Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi States, not many farmers had been going through NIRSAL’s window to borrow funds.

Earlier in an opening remark, CBN Branch Controller in Sokoto, Mallam Mohammed Lawal Idris, said Nigeria’s agricultural sector was underfinanced despite the sector being central to the country’s economy.

Idris described NIRSAL as a mechanism designed to provide farmers affordable financial products and reduce the risk exposure of financial institutions that lend to the sector.

“NIRSAL will also build capacity of Nigerian banks and other financial service providers to lend to agriculture, deploy risk sharing instruments that lower the risks of lending, provide technical assistance for farmers and banks and develop a bank rating scheme that will incentivise and showcase/ situate banks based on their capacities to lend to the agricultural sector,” he said.