The Bank of Agriculture (BoA) has intensified efforts to improve women farmers’ access to finance, agricultural inputs, mechanisation and markets as part of measures to boost food production and strengthen Nigeria’s agricultural value chains.
The Bank said its interventions are designed to address persistent barriers limiting the productivity of women and other smallholder farmers, while ensuring that agricultural financing goes beyond credit disbursement to provide support throughout the production cycle.
As part of the initiative, BoA recently engaged women farmers in Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, providing agricultural inputs to support their current farming activities.
The Bank said the intervention reflects its broader strategy of responding to the practical challenges confronting farmers and ensuring they have the resources required to translate financing, land and labour into increased production and income.
Women play a significant role in Nigeria’s agricultural sector but continue to face unequal access to finance and productive resources.
Estimates cited by the Food and Agriculture Organisation indicate that women account for up to 70 per cent of the agricultural workforce, while World Bank evidence suggests that narrowing the gender gap in access to productive resources could increase agricultural output, improve food security and contribute to poverty reduction.
Despite their contribution, women farmers remain significantly underserved by formal financial institutions. Recent World Bank data indicates that only three per cent of female farmers in Nigeria are formally enrolled in financial systems, compared with 10 per cent of their male counterparts.
Speaking on the Bank’s efforts to address the gap, BoA Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Ayodeji Oludare Sotinrin, said expanding agricultural finance must be accompanied by measures addressing other constraints affecting farmers’ productivity.
“Women are already contributing significantly to agriculture and to Nigeria’s food system. Our responsibility is to ensure that the systems around them give them a better opportunity to produce, grow and participate in the value chain,” Sotinrin said.
“That means looking beyond credit and addressing the other constraints that affect production.”
He said agricultural financing should not end with the disbursement of funds, stressing that farmers also require access to inputs, mechanisation, markets and other services to improve productivity.
“Agricultural financing cannot end with disbursement. Farmers need access to inputs, mechanisation, markets and other support required to turn financing into output. That is the ecosystem we are building at the Bank of Agriculture,” he added.
Sotinrin said the approach is being implemented through the Bank’s Renewed Hope Smallholder Support and Value Chain Fund, which is working with farmer aggregation companies to bring more than two million smallholder farmers into a structured, Federal Government-backed on-lending framework.
Under the arrangement, farmers are expected to receive financing alongside agricultural inputs, agronomic support and offtake arrangements, with the objective of increasing production rather than focusing solely on the volume of credit disbursed.
BoA is also deploying a N250 billion facility to provide single-digit financing to smallholder farmers, while its N1.5 trillion recapitalisation is expected to strengthen the Bank’s capacity to expand agricultural lending and reach more farmers across the country.
The Bank said improving access to finance for women farmers is particularly important because financial exclusion is often compounded by limited access to inputs, technology, mechanisation and markets.
It added that its emerging financing model seeks to connect farmers to capital as well as the infrastructure, production support and market opportunities necessary to improve their earnings.
Through its Guaranteed Minimum Price Aggregation Programme, BoA is also linking farmers producing selected commodities to structured aggregation systems, accredited warehouses and guaranteed offtake arrangements.
The initiative is expected to provide farmers with greater certainty over markets for their produce while reducing some of the risks associated with production and post-harvest marketing.
BoA said closing the gap between farmers’ productive potential and their access to finance and other resources would be critical as Nigeria seeks to increase domestic food production, strengthen food security and develop more resilient agricultural value chains.
The Bank pledged to deepen partnerships, financing mechanisms and value-chain interventions aimed at bringing more farmers, particularly women and other underserved smallholder producers, into the formal agricultural economy and creating stronger links between finance, production and markets.
