Despite the N4.68 trillion loans granted to Nigerian farmers by commercial banks to support the agricultural sector between 2018 and 2022, Nigerians are still hungry.
This is according to a report recently published by Alford Conferences Limited, an Abuja-based firm.
The report titled “Commercial Bank Lending to the Nigerian Agricultural Industry 2018-2022,” called on the banks to seek more creative ways of supporting the agricultural sector if Nigeria is to attain food security.
A recent statistics provided by 2024 Cadre Harmonise show that over 31.8 million Nigerians are facing acute hunger.
The Cadre Harmonise report prepared by Development partners which include the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), GAIN, GIZ, Agsys, said the heightened hunger is caused by the surge in food commodity prices which is as a result of the removal of fuel subsidy in addition to security challenges.
The CEO of Alford Conferences, Mr. Frederick Apeji, while presenting the commercial banks’ lending to agriculture report, said Nigeria’s commercial banking sector must seek creative ways to increase the share of its loan portfolio devoted to growing the country’s agricultural industry in the years ahead, beyond just the 5.03 per cent that it gave to the industry during the review period.
“More importantly, we advocate that the governments of the 36 states and FCT should deliberately work more closely with these commercial banks in order to attract appropriate funding for bankable businesses and projects across the agricultural value chains in their respective domains,” he said.
“The total five-year bank lending of N4.68 trillion given to the agricultural industry compares favourably with the N8.18 trillion internally generated revenue (IGR) that was raised collectively in these past five years by the FCT and the 36 states.”
He said the report is coming ahead of his firm’s forthcoming Nigeria Food Surplus Summit, a nationwide advocacy that seeks to help Nigeria to successfully feed itself and have a large surplus for export by strengthening the commercial farming, food processing, and agricultural machinery segments of the country’s agricultural industry.
The report shows that Access Holdings was the biggest lender in Nigeria between January 1, 2018 and December 31, 2022 with N17.386 trillion. Its lending to agriculture during the period was also the biggest with N928.55 billion.
Zenith Bank ranked as the second biggest lender in Nigeria with N14.278 trillion. Its lending to agriculture during the review period was N873.36 billion, making it the second highest lender to the sector.
FBN Holdings, which ranked the third biggest lender in Nigeria with N12.411 trillion, however ranked 7th among the 12 banks in the report based on its total loans of N285.18 billion to agriculture.
The report further indicated that Ecobank Nigeria gave the highest percentage of its total loans of N4.68 trillion to the agricultural industry.
The bank’s loan to agriculture stood at N574.69 billion, representing 12.28 per cent. Sterling Bank and FCMB Group ranked second and third respectively in terms of their percentage commitment to supporting the Nigerian agricultural industry during the five-year period. Though regarded as small players in the banking industry, they gave 8.19 per cent and 7.58 per cent respectively to agriculture.(Guardian)
