Agriculture needs to be properly linked to industry- NIRSAL

Managing Director, Nigerian Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending, (NIRSAL), Mr. Aliyu Abdulhameed, said that for agriculture to work and contributes its quota to economic growth, guarantee decent incomes for farmers, it has to be properly linked to industry.

He stated this in Lagos today at the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bank of Industry (BoI), noted that the linkage between agriculture and industry is weak and this reduces the ability of both sectors to contribute to economic growth.

Abdulhameed disclosed that the industry currently does not provide a significant outlet for agriculture output and that it lacks capacity to help stabilize agricultural markets and plays only a marginal role in opening up attractive new uses for crops. For many of the major crops, industrial use accounts for less than 10 percent of total production, he stressed.

“If the current food import policy stance of the Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is maintained, the emerging pattern of agricultural growth that we’re just beginning to witness is likely to be sustained into 2017,” he said.

NISRAL boss, explained that the rush by farmers to take advantage of the current market demand for staples as a result of import restriction, the huge urban population that has to be fed, the demand of raw material by the animal feed industry and the favourable conditions in export markets for certain commodities like cashew, sesame, and cocoa all have the combined potential to significantly drive growth of agriculture.

He said that the above scenario have informed NIRSAL’s quest to seek for urgent increased investment in both agricultural primary production and agro-processing. “This is what has led the NIRSAL to seek collaboration with the Bank of Industry, a financial institution that also understands the economic urgency of the moment,” he added.

Acting Managing Director of the bank, Mr. Waheed Olagunju, in his welcome address, explained that the decision was in line with the Federal Government’s quest to diversify the country’s revenue base.

He also explained that the ongoing efforts by the BoI in collaboration with NISRAL to come up with credible data on agricultural sector in the country, was what was needed to help investors make investment decisions. This, he also said, would aid the donor agencies’ grant decisions.

This, he maintained, was to enable the bank play active role in the sector. For instance, Olagunju stressed that some of the bank’s staff will undergo training programmes in other to harness the potentials in the sector.

On the viability of the development finance institution to mobilise funding support for the sector, Olagunju averred that the bank has high credit rating. ‘‘There are lot of grants that are meant to support the development”, he said.