The Federal Government plans to set up a non-profit, agri-centered bank which would be run for the purpose of “meeting the financing needs of the country’s agricultural sector”.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural development, Audu Ogbeh, disclosed this while receiving the Kebbi State Governor, Mr. Atiku Bagudu, and representatives of the Nigerian Agribusiness Group (NAGB) in Abuja. Mr. Ogbeh said that although the government was still determined to restructure the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), it had been decided that Nigeria’s farmers were in need of a financial institution which would take care of the funding issues they faced and offer them the opportunity to have their say in the Federal Government’s plans to finance agriculture in the country.
“We are looking at a new bank where stakeholders in the agricultural sector would be shareholders along with the Federal Government”, the minister said. “Farmers and other stakeholders would be involved in policy formulation concerning the bank and should also determine the interest rate to be charged”.
Mr. Ogbeh had admitted in July that the BOA was struggling under the burden of considerably large debt. He had also talked about establishing a bank in which the Federal Government, the private sector, and the country’s 25 million farmers were shareholders. The new bank, the government hopes, will deal with the farmers’ problem as far as accessing loans at low-interest rates is concerned.