The Bank of Agriculture ( BoA) has disclosed plans to empower up to 250,000 farmers through its agricultural financing programs .
This is said to be designed to be driven by the present administration’s ₦200 billion Guaranteed Minimum Price Programme for small holder farmers across the country.
The Bank’s Managing Director, Ayodeji Sotinri disclosed this in Abuja during a media parley with Agriculture Correspondents on Thursday.
He explained that the initiative is part of President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda in the Agricultural sector, aimed at increasing food production by making available varieties of inputs to farmers in the country.
He noted that,“The President took a significant portion of the budget and entrusted it to the Bank of Agriculture to finance small-holder farmers. We have designed the programme from end to end using technology to ensure transparency and efficiency”.
According to him, the intervention of the bank was conceived to stabilise commodity prices while ensuring both farmers and food processors benefit from a more predictable market.
“We are not giving out money as charity. We are creating a price stabilisation mechanism that supports farmers while maintaining market balance,” he said.
Sotinrin said the reforms are anchored on what he described as the “three Rs”—restructuring, recapitalisation and repositioning of the bank.Executive Branch
Also, he disclosed that there was an ongoing effort towards repositioning the bank for effective delivery of services.
He further noted that when he assumed office over a year ago, BOA was operating with obsolete infrastructure, manual processes and weak technology, making it difficult to fulfil its development mandate.
“We practically had to start the bank afresh. Some branches were still operating with computers acquired over 15 years ago. There was virtually no modern banking infrastructure,” he said.
