The Nigerian Incentive Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), has said it will facilitate about N60 billion in fresh commercial bank lending to farmers in the current financial year. The agency also said it will execute the $300 million African Development Bank, AfDB’s Youth Enable Programme, and operationalising the $500 million Mechanisation Partnership with the Brazilian Government and a host of others.

All these is towards the improvement of the agricultural sector by making loans available to farmers and attracting the youths to agriculture.

The Managing Director of NIRSAL, Aliyu Abbati Abdulhameed, disclosed this in Lagos, last week, while delivering a paper titled: “Powering Nigerian Agriculture Through Innovative Financing: The NIRSAL Edge” at the BusinessDay Agribusiness & Food Security Summit 2017.

In a statement from the agency, Abdulhameed also expressed NIRSAL’s readiness to play its role in the realisation of the economic recovery plans, while listing its key plans for the year.He said: “NIRSAL’s broad objective is to increase lending to 3.8 million farmers by 2026 through cooperatives and value chains.