The Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending NIRSAL Plc, a non-bank financial institution wholly-owned and incorporated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to De-risk Agriculture and Facilitate Agribusiness, is calling on all smallholder farmers (2020/2021 Dry Season) farmer leaders and aggregators to key into its Agra Geo Cooperative model created for the purpose of sustainable farm/field structuring and governance, to enable sustainable access to finance.
Anticipating the new challenges and opportunities that will emerge for Nigeria’s agricultural economy the COVID-19 and Post COVID-19 era, NIRSAL PLC has embarked on a project of creating 16.000 Agro Geo Cooperatives on 4 million hectares of farmland and enrolling about 8 million farmers across Nigeria expected to produce about 12million metric tunnesal‘Grain Product EquivalenthPEl annually over the medium to the long term time horizons. NlRSAL expects that under this arrangement. farmers will be enabled to have access to structured finance. quality inputs, extension. monitoring, weather information. aggregation services and access to markets.
The NIRSAL Agra Geo-Cooperative® IAGC) model recognizes that it is the land that makes the farmer; hence, No land No farmer! Accordingly, the model groups farmers based on the contiguity of their farmlands, with each farmer retaining what is originally theirs and becoming partakers in large, structured farming projects. The bigger and more contiguous an Agricultural Geo Cooperative is, the faster and easier for it to have access to structured finance, quality inputs, and structured markets through NIRSAL‘stacilitation.
While there have been many enrolments into NIRSAL’s AGCs across the country, more Rice and Wheat farmers, farmer leaders and aggregators are particularly encouraged to sign up according to the categorizations bellow:
- AgroGeoCoop Cell:- 10 hectares
- Agro GeoCooperative block – 50 hectares
- AgroGeoCoop Unit:- 250 hectares
- Emarging Micro AgroGeoCluster:- 251 – 500 hectares
- Micro AgroGeoCluster – 501:- 2500 hectares
- SmallAgroGeoCluster – 2501:- 5000 hectarers
- Large AgroGeoCluster -7,501:- 10000 hectares
- Mega AgroGeoCluster – 10001:- 20000 hectares
- Super Mega AgroGeoCluster:- 20001 hectares and above
A review of the applications received following the earlier call for enrollment into NIRSAL‘s AGCs indicated the need to make a specific call for:
I. Dry Season Agricultural Geo-Conperalivn: Rice, Wheat. Tomato etc.
II. Non-Seasonal Agricultural GIO-Coonaratives: Aquaculture, Livestock, and Poultry.
Accordingly. NIRSAL PLC has trained and primed its Project Monitoring, Reporting and Remediation officers (PMOs) in the 36 States of the Federation and the FCT to assist farmers, farmer leaders, aggregators and ether interested participants to meet the following pm qualification requirements for the dry season and non-seasonal commodities:
I. Know you Farm‘s (KYF) Geographic Coordinates and Size
II. Know Your farmland Neighbour(KYN)
III. KnquourCusmmer(KYC)
IV. Elect Agro Geo Cooperative Leaders {President, Vice PresidenllSecrela, and Director of Fina n cel
V. Download/Collect (online and offline) and complete the NIRSAL Agro Gea-Cooperative Enrollment Forms (AT NO COST)
VI. Submit completed offline forms to N IRSAL PLC offices across the country (PMRO officers Located in CBN branches near you) for further processing.
Online enrollment at www.nirsal.com
is highly recommended.
In line with this, Community Leaders. Individuals, Enterprises, Corporate Bodies. Graduates. N-POWER Beneficiaries, Active and Retired leaders and farmers in The ADP programme. World Bank FADAMA Programme. USAID MARKETS Pragramme, IFAD Value Chain Development Programme, The World Bank Climate Adaptation and Business Support programme, AtDB Agric programmes, the DFID’s Propcom Maikarfi Programme, the SASSAKAWA Global 2000 Programme, and others that meet NIRSAL PLC’s eligibility requirement and who are domiciled in or have access to their communities and farmers, are encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity means as employment and a source of income generation through supporting the productive activities of their self-organized Agro Geo Cooperatives.
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