The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), Mr. Aliyu A. Abdulhameed, has said that talking too much without action was not in NIRSAL’s DNA. Aliyu stated this yesterday while responding to questions during the national symposium on agriculture with the theme; fixing Nigerian agricultural value chain.
The event was organized by the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ) in collaboration with NIRSAL.
The CEO, who hinted that NIRSAL had just finished its establishment phase and was already going into the second phase of policy framework for the entire agric value chains emphasized that the entire planet earth will soon begin to feel NIRSAL’s impact starting from the unset of the next dry season farming.
Abdulhameed, who also stressed that NIRSAL does not provide finance to farmers but endorses projects for financing by banks, stated that NIRSAL’s objective is; to fix the agricultural value chains in order to provide a reliable platform for de-risking agricultural lending; mobilize financing for Nigerian agribusiness by using credit guarantees to address the risk of default; provide technical assistance through capacity building across the value chains; reduce the cost of borrowing by agricultural producers from commercial bank; and to provide technical advice to agribusinesses.
NIRSAL was launched in 2011 and incorporated in 2013 by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as a dynamic, holistic USD500 million public-private initiative to define, measure, price and share agribusiness related credit risk.
NIRSAL’s identified pilot crop value chains based on existing crop production levels and potentials in six high-potential breadbasket areas are: tomatoes, cotton, maize, soya beans, rice and cassava.
