Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending Plc (NIRSAL), a subsidiary of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revealed that Nigerians spend a total of about N25 billion on foods daily most of which imported from other countries.
NIRSAL said a total of about $623 million is spent annually on catfish importation into Nigeria through smuggling in a country said to have about 71.2 million cultivable hectares of land with only about 34.2 million hectares currently being cultivated.
It noted that the agricultural sector of the economy alone can employ 65 per cent of Nigerian populace should government decide to go into it full scale.
Speaking at the day-two of a three-day Agricultural Value Chain Financing (AgVCF) training workshop organised for bankers in Kaduna, Executive Director, NIRSAL Plc, Mr. Arowosafe Jide, said the training became necessary due to distrust between farmers and lending banks to finance agriculture projects, which was part of the reasons for over dependence on importation of foods the country can produce.
According to him, the organisation is building the capacity of bankers because of lack of trust between them and famers with a view to keying into agricultural agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
The report by NIRSAL revealed that Nigeria loses about $623 million on dairy importation, $500 million on sugar importation, $4 billion on wheat importation, $2.2 billion on cotton importation and $2 billion on rice smuggling importation annually.
A participant and Regional Director at UBA Plc, Mr. Danjuma Salihu, said his bank has been agriculture-friendly despite being aware of the risks inherent in agricultural lending and how to mitigate them, adding that the training had further boosted his understanding of loan disbursement to farmers within the farming calendar.
A credit analyst with Heritage Bank Plc, Mr. Olukayode Oyebamgbose, said because of the change in government direction, many will be going into agricultural businesses.
Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Nigeria has disclosed that the nation’s foreign reserves fell to $26.50 billion on May 23, down 2.8 percent from the previous month’s figure. The nation’s reserves closed at $27.26 billion on April 23, having dropped 10.9 percent from last year when it was $29.73 billion.
A drop in oil prices had eaten deep into Nigeria’s foreign reserves, forcing the CBN to introduce currency controls, that frustrated businesses and caused the economy to contract.
