Nigeria needs extra $180 million to fund agric sector, says NADF — Nigeria — The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News
• Nigeria, Brazil sign MoU to boost agribusiness in 774 councils
Nigeria Agricultural Development Fund (NADF) has said Nigeria needs investment of about $180 million to bridge the financing gap in the agricultural sector. The Executive Secretary of NAFD, Muhammed Abu Ibrahim, who disclosed this during a media conference at the weekend in Abuja, said the Fund was working towards raising finance through grants, public and private sector to bridge funding gap.
He added that although NADF was expected to be funded from the five per cent import duty levy on rice, sugar, poultry, dairy and livestock, due to import duty waiver on some agricultural items by the President, they were no longer receiving the funds.
According to him, NADF also gets funding from the 0.05 per cent from the Natural Resource Development Fund, which is about 1.86 per cent of FAC allocation adding that their mandate also allows raising capital from investors to be disbursed to banks at low interest rate.
He disclosed that the NADF had developed four frameworks tailored towards addressing specific issues in the agricultural sector, saying the problem was real and underscored the importance of developing solutions that would serve the test of time.
According to him, the Fund is working towards providing credit facilities at a lower interest rate, explaining their mandate is to provide funds to the bank for onward lending at reduced interest rate.
NADF made the disclosure just as the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (FMAFS) and Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) of Brazil, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to advance private sector development in fertiliser production, hybrid seed technology, and agricultural finance.
The Presidency, in a statement, explained that the MoU was signed on behalf of the government by the Permanent Secretary of FMAFS, Mr Temitope Fashedemi, and the President of FGV, Prof Carlos Ivan Simonsen Leal, at FGV Headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on the sidelines of the G20 Leaders’ Summit.
According to the statement issued by the Director of Information and Public Relations, Abiodun Oladunjoye, yesterday, the agreement marks a new phase of strategic collaboration between Nigeria and FGV, the Green Imperative Project (GIP) lead implementer, one of the largest international agricultural technology transfer initiatives.
Conceived in 2018, GIP is a 1.2 billion dollar cooperative effort between Brazil and Nigeria, designed to modernise Nigeria’s agricultural sector through Brazilian expertise in tropical agriculture.
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