The Competitive African Rice Initiative (CARI) has started training agricultural desk officers in the bank sector to boost their capacity to support rice farmers with loans with low interest rates.
Dr Andrew Efisue, the Country Operations Manager of CARI, made this known in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday.
He said that the training on Agricultural Value Chain Finance (VCF) in Nigeria was organised in Abuja by CARI for financial institutions.
“The VCF tool was developed three years ago with the specific purpose of training bankers on agricultural financing because we realised that in many cases, bankers do not understand farmers and farming.
“ The tool was developed to increase the capacity of bankers so that they can feel more comfortable in creating the right framework to support farmers through lending to them.
“The objective is to convince these bankers and after the training, they will be more favourably disposed towards lending to farmers, contrary with what has been the case in the past.
“We have encouraging reports from our previous training and we always want the participants to be able to go back to their perspective banks and convince their management that there is need to support farmers,’’ he said.
Efisue said that CARI would look at the different interest rates and what was prevailing in the market, with a view to discussing the pros and cons of several approaches before choosing the preferable and sustainable one for farmers.
Mr Ekundayo Mejebi, Consultant to CARI, said that the training would improve the knowledge of the participants on value chain financing, services and business models for sustainable and commercially viable agricultural ventures.
“The participants will be able to understand value chains as economic, technical and institutional systems with a broad range of actors, their relations and the role of agricultural enterprises in this context.
“They will also understand the management principles of agriculture as a business with a focus on primary producers, their characteristics and objectives.
“The training will also help them understand the CARI interventions and results regarding the performance of smallholders and management finance partners.
“It will also help the participants to know the challenges and success factors for developing and supplying financial services to smallholder farmers as well as small and medium enterprises within the scope of CARI,’’ he said.
Also speaking, Mr Adeniyi Kazeem, Value Chain Advisor to CARI, said that CARI had achieved a lot in efforts to improve the productivity of farmers and quality of rice production in Nigeria.
“Our workshop for financial institutions has also improved the access of all value chain actors to financial services
“We have increased efficiency of local rice farmers; we have improved rice processing and marketing via structured value chain linkages, improved technology and processing management.
“We have provided an enabling environment at national and regional levels, including policy framework and strengthening of rice sector initiatives,’’ he said.
NAN recalls that CARI organised a breakfast meeting for financiers working in the agricultural sector last week, as part of strategies aimed at improving funding for smallholder rice farmers across the country. (NAN)
