NIRSAL facilitates n148b credit for agric/agribusiness investment

The Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agriculture Leading (NIRSAL) have facilitated over N148billion in finance and investments for agriculture and agribusiness. It also aggregated over 3,000 agro geo-cooperatives with 500,000 farmers on 800,000 hectares of land.

This was stated by the Managing Director/CEO of NIRSAL, Mr. Aliyu Abdulhameed in Abuja on Thursday, he revealed that in the course of the last 13 months, the public limited liability company facilitated the flow of over NGN30billion into agricultural value chains from commercial banks and other sources.

Attributing the success to the huge support by the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, prudent management of resources and good corporate governance, the CEO added that as enablers of actors in the agricultural value chain, the company remained operational for those who were allowed by the federal government to move around for the purpose of producing food and rendering essential services in the society.

According to him, ‘’By remaining operational, our numbers grew: As of Q4 2020, we had achieved the following: Facilitated over NGN148billion in finance and investments for agriculture and agribusiness.

‘’Aggregated over 3,000 agro geo-cooperatives with 500,000 farmers on nearly 800,000 hectares of land. Enrolled 1.4 million persons onto innovative insurance products designed by NIRSAL in collaboration with a consortium of agricultural insurance underwriters.’’

Abdulhameed added that the company has also been up to some high-level advocacy, saying that in order to curb the dismal levels of post-harvest losses that Nigeria suffers, and create efficient routes for commodity movement and storage, NIRSAL is engaging with and supporting the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment in the development of a policy on Secured Agricultural Commodity Transport and Storage Corridors (SATS-C).

While commending the media for their social responsibility – in helping to drive NIRSAL’s policies and programmes, he said that the company has used the media to communicate its plans and accomplishments to good effect.

Abdulhameed said that NIRSAL is a vehicle that promises much to Nigeria and is currently delivering remarkably, advising that distractions from vested interests are unwelcome to the work of supporting the building of a resilient economy in Africa’s most populous nation.

MTO/ThisDay