The Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) has trained 500 fish farmers and agricultural extension agents on profitable value-chain and best practices in Sokoto State.
The NIRSAL’s lead trainer, Mr Baba Robert, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Sokoto on Friday that the programme is under the Technical Assistance Pillar of NIRSAL mandates.
”NIRSAL is working towards reaching out to 100,000 fish, cassava, and rice farmers across the country this year with its training on the optimisation of Agro Geo-Cooperative to support the Federal Government’s food security agenda.
”The train-the-trainer programme, which comprised 500 participants, is intended to impact on 3,500 farmers during the step-down phase and boost Sokoto’s position to become a regional fish hub.
”The programme is aimed at boosting farmers’ capacities to access and repay commercial loans and other finances, inputs, optimise their harvests and produce aggregation, and enhance their access to secured markets,” Robert said.
According to him, NIRSAL has set out modalities to sensitise fish farmers to its value-chain-fixing solutions, especially the Agro Geo-Cooperative (AGC) model, which structures smallholder farmers.
He noted that the targeted farmers were expected to obtain enhanced capacity to be able to produce at locations and venture into financeable clusters with elaborate structures.
Robert called on the participants to adopt the AGC model of primary production, observing that it was a solution to the perennial difficulties farmers encounter in their attempts to access finance and produce at scale.
”With the large size of each AGC, its governance structure, and the clear financial identities of its members, the risk of lending is reduced for banks and other lenders.
”NIRSAL’s availability will further de-risk loans extended to the farmers with its Credit Risk Guarantee (CRG) instrument which stands at 75% for primary production projects,” he said.
Robert further explained that NIRSAL Plc remained a Non-Bank Financial Institution and a wholly-owned corporation of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) incorporated in 2013 to stimulate the flow of affordable finance and investments into the agricultural sector.
He said as at June 2023, the corporation has facilitated over NGN219.5 billion for 893 agricultural projects from deposit money in banks, capital market, and other financial institutions.
A cross-section of participants interviewed thanked NIRSAL Pls for the training which they said, had broadened their knowledge and provided them with modern business potentialities.
