At the first annual NACCIMA-NIRSAL Agribusiness and Policy Linkage Conference, the managing director of NIRSAL, Mr. Aliyu Abdulhameed, said lack of capital posed a threat to government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) which is directed at increasing annual agricultural growth from 2011-2015 output of 4.1% to 8.3% by December 2020.
This is directed at increasing annual agricultural growth from 2011-2015 output of 4.1% to 8.3% by December 2020.
Aliyu said: “We are naturally endowed with land, water, climate and the market and at very competitive levels, but we lack the full capital to actualize these opportunities”
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Further, he said though the country lacked funds to put in place necessary infrastructures, storage, logistics and processing, NIRSAL was established to share all the risks associated with funding across the value chain.
The Director explained that a core function of NIRSAL is to facilitate and increase the flow of commercial revenue and investment in agriculture and fixing the broken value chains which are impediments to achieving increased financial investments.
He said the objective of NIRSAL is to raise commercial bank-lending and other investment from 3% to 10% by 2026 and to see to it that six billion dollars come into Nigerian agricultural sector annually.
He also added that NIRSAL in its bid to end the endemic challenges in the Agricultural sector and promote the right strategies, it has partnered with Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA).
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The president of NACCIMA, Mrs. Alaba Lawson said there was the need to maximize agricultural productivity by increasing public awareness of the potential that abounds in agriculture.
She added that opportunity in the agricultural sector was vast with the 180 million population of Nigeria and that market of agriculture was huge.
