The Lift Above Poverty Organisation (LAPO), yesterday said its rural development initiative has disbursed N74.5 billion to 183,538 clients, who are predominantly rural farmers between 2015 and July 2022.
Speaking at the 29th LAPO Annual Development Forum in Abuja, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the microfinance bank, Dr Godwin Ehigiamusoe, said LAPO is an active participant in the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme (ACGS) of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Ehigiamusoe, while speaking on the theme: “Financing Agriculture and Rural Development in Nigeria: Issues and way forward”, said it focuses on examining key issues in the development of the rural economy with emphasis on agricultural financing.
According to him, between January 2012 and December 2021, the microfinance bank disbursed over N35 billion to small scale farmers.
He stated that the bank has already disbursed the sum of N4.1 billion to small scale farmers in the current financial year.
He added that the LAPO eco-system has over the years made significant contributions to rural agricultural financing and development in Nigeria with substantial impact.
In his remarks, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Mohammad Mahmood Abubakar, said the federal government has approved new incentives for investors in the country’s agricultural sector.
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Abubakar, who was represented by the Director of Rural Development of the ministry, Dr Udo Daniel Udoh, highlighted some of the incentives to include: tax and duty-free holidays for a period of five years for agricultural production and processing in Nigeria; tax-free agricultural loans with a moratorium period of over 18 months and repayment period of not more than seven years; and zero-tariff rates on the importation of agro chemicals.
The new set of incentives, he said, was targeted at improving high-level private sector participation in Nigeria’s food production and processing industry.
The Director General of Nigeria Agribusiness Group, Dr Manzo Maigari lamented that the country has an import bill of over $15 billion annually.
Maigari said with 84 million hectares of arable land, 279 billion cubic metre of fresh water, over 100 million young people, Nigeria cannot go wrong if the focus is on agriculture.
He said: “Land utilisation is about 40 per cent our of which only 10 per cent is effectively utilised, irrigation is at under 10 per cent, mechanisation is one of the lowest in the world, post-harvest loss is at 40 per cent with a further 20 per cent loss in transit before it gets to consumer.
“Our reality is that we should be ruling Africa once it is the issue of food production, however, our potentials in agriculture continue to elude us”.