Six cooperative societies to benefit from 600bn narsal fund

THE National Association of Microfinance Banks, NAMB, South West zone, has short listed six Cooperative Societies that would benefit from the N600 billion Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) Fund. 

The names include: Livestock Farmers Association, Tractor Hiring Farmers’ Cooperatives, Fish Farmers Cooperatives, Agro Input Farmers’ Cooperative, Agro Processing Farmers’ Cooperative and the Cocoa Farmers’ Cooperative. Olufemi Babajide, NAMB South West Zone Chairman, told Vanguard that the six cooperative societies were carefully chosen. According to Babajide, “We are now in the pairing stage where we will pair these farmers with Micro Finance Banks (MfBs). This means that Microfinance banks in a particular area will be paired with all the identified groups in their area, so as to disburse the funds to them directly. “Over the years, government has been setting aside special fund for farmers and those funds never get to them. MfBs were just funding farmers with their own resources which were not adequate but with this brilliant initiative from the authorities, modalities are now being put in place to ensure the Fund gets to the farmers. “To get to the level of disbursement of the fund, it will take a lot of processes, we have sent list of our banks with interest and the national secretariat will recommend. Is not just a question of come and take money, there is going to be training in that area, hence it is not something that is going to be achieved in a day. “Interested farmers who are not members but in need of the fund can meet any of the aforementioned societies for recommendations,” he explained. It would be recalled that not too long, the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN set aside N600 billion agric Fund, to be accessed by Microfinance Banks for on-lending to small holder farmers.