The Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) Plc has mobilised N102 billion in the past four years to invest in the agricultural business value chain.
NIRSAL’s Managing Director, Mr. Aliyu Abdulhameed, disclosed this yesterday in Abuja during an interactive session with journalists.
He said this fund was mobilised from the inception of the organisation without government financing and direct financial support from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Abdulhameed said with the success at NIRSAL, the federal government can leverage the model and drive efficiency across sectors.
He said: “Through the NIRSAL, the government can eat its cake and still have it. With NIRSAL, we have been able to mobilise N102bn from zero additional financing to agric value chain. There is no government money involved. The funds are largely from banks and other private sector investors. N102bn mobilsed yet we are not being given money. This is a classical cake of eating your cake and having it.”
In a related development, NIRSAL has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Microsoft to collaborate in the deployment of the Microsoft Azure FarmBeats platform to help Nigerian farmers become more productive, reduce costs, practice sustainable agriculture and achieve better agricultural outcomes.
NIRSAL has turned to Microsoft Azure FarmBeats as the perfect platform to enable Comprehensive Farm Monitoring, which is critical to the NIRSAL Credit Risk Guarantee (CRG) to financiers and investors to minimise the risks associated with agriculture and agribusiness finance and investments.
Microsoft’s Azure FarmBeats is a purpose-built, agricultural cloud platform that enables the aggregation of agricultural data and generation of actionable insights into farm health and conditions, soil moisture, crop layout and farm population by harnessing the power of Artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and Cloud technology.
Speaking on the collaboration, Abdulhameed maintained that “agriculture remains the foundation of Nigeria’s economy and is the main source of livelihood for most Nigerians”, adding that the sustainability and growth of the agricultural sector is crucial for the development of the country and its people.
“We are certain that Azure FarmBeats will be the tool that will help us to analyse the data being produced from these farms and all the possible ways we can use it to stabilise the agricultural value chain and boost the confidence of investors to eliminate barriers to the free flow of finance and investment to agribusiness in Nigeria”, the NIRSAL boss added.
