| The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN is to provide about N750bn for the recapitalization of the Bank of Agriculture before the end of next year, the Federal Government has said.
According to the government, the restructuring and recapitalization of the BoA will enable the bank to attract up to N1tn to effectively provide loans at affordable interest rates to farmers. The Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, disclosed this at the Farmers’ Field Day organised by Dizengoff Nigeria Limited in collaboration with Phinada Integrated Farms in Abuja. “The Central Bank of Nigeria is collaborating with the Ministry of Agriculture. This is because one of the biggest challenges of agriculture in Nigeria today is access to affordable loans. But in many other parts of the world, agriculture is the most attractive sector for banks to lend money to. So what do we do? “As a ministry and the Federal Government, we are planning to recapitalize the Bank of Agriculture. So, we are to restructure the BoA and the CBN is committed to providing about N750bn. The BoA as an institution itself is going to attract hundreds of billions of naira. And we thinking that before the end of next year, we should be able to attract at least N1tn available credit to be lent to anybody who wants to do farming business.” |
