FAQs
- QUESTION: Does NIRSAL give loans?
ANSWER: NIRSAL does not give loans, rather it guarantees bank loans given to projects in Nigeria’s agricultural value chain.
- QUESTION: Do I require collateral to get a loan backed by NIRSAL’s Guarantee?
ANSWER: NIRSAL does not alter the loan processes of banks; however, it facilitates lending to agriculture through its Credit Risk Guarantee (CRG) – a mechanism that encourages banks to take on more lending to agriculture trusting that accruing risks are shared by a capable institutional partner.
- QUESTION: Asides guaranteeing agricultural loans, what else does NIRSAL do?
ANSWER: A lot. However, everything NIRSAL does flows from the credit guarantees it gives. Whenever NIRSAL exposes its balance sheet in guaranteeing a project, the immediate and remote elements critical for the project’s success must be addressed. They include: training/capacity building – derived from NIRSAL’s Technical Assistance pillar; coverage with innovative insurance products – derived from the Insurance pillar; as well as project monitoring and control. Additionally, in order to spur a proactive disposition to agriculture amongst all stakeholders, NIRSAL has the Rating and Incentives pillars for rating institutional response to agribusiness and incentivizing good corporate behaviour accordingly.
- QUESTION: Where can we find NIRSAL’s offices?
ANSWER: NIRSAL has offices in all 36 states of the Federation and the FCT which makes it an organisation for Nigeria and all Nigerians. Find our office nearest to you, and engage our people with your agribusiness projects.
- QUESTION: NIRSAL focuses only on the North. Why?
ANSWER: NIRSAL does not focus only on the North. Two factors negate the notion that NIRSAL focuses only on the North. The first is that NIRSAL focuses on 15+ agriculture commodities, some of which grow best outside the North. The second is that NIRSAL leverages Nigeria’s geographical endowments through what is termed Agricultural Commodity Ecological Areas (ACEAs). These two factors necessitate that NIRSAL’s field of work is nationwide.
- QUESTION: Is NIRSAL a custodian for Federal Government money meant for farmers?
ANSWER: No. NIRSAL’s core mandate is to facilitate the flow of finance and investments from banks (private sector) into the agriculture sector to bring about the sustainable growth of the sector and enable it to contribute more significantly to Nigeria’s GDP. To accomplish this mandate, NIRSAL is equipped with a USD500 Million capital with which to share agribusiness-related credit risks, support the development of innovative agro-insurance products, provide technical assistance to value chain actors, rate and incentivize participants in this agricultural financing “revolution”.
- QUESTION: What do NIRSAL’s PMROs do?
ANSWER: NIRSAL’s Project Monitoring, Reporting and Remediation Offices (PMROs) are located in all 36 states of the federation and the FCT to keep tabs on NIRSAL-supported projects in the field, relate with NIRSAL’s stakeholders across the country and originate NIRSAL-type deals from the field for consideration, analyses and approval.
- QUESTION: How can I access NIRSAL loan or facility as a smallholder farmer?
ANSWER: Smallholder farmers operating individually hold little or no attraction for banks and other financiers. NIRSAL’s approach is the Agro Geo-Cooperative® model that aggregates hundreds of smallholder farmers, making out of them a single large entity that is attractive to the world of finance. Therefore, to obtain bank loans through NIRSAL as a smallholder farmer, one must be socially engineered to belong to and operate from an Agro Geo-Cooperative.
- QUESTION: What is an Agro Geo-Cooperative?
ANSWER: The NIRSAL Agro Geo-Cooperative® is the coming together of smallholder farmers bound together by geography to take on the production of single commodities such that economies of scale can be leveraged for higher productivity and returns for all involved.
- QUESTION: What are the farm land sizes for the formation of Agro Geo-Cooperatives?
ANSWER:
| S/N | GEO COOPERATIVE TYPE | FARM LAND SIZE |
| 1. | Plots | 0.5 – 1Ha |
| 2. | Agro Geo-Cooperative Blocks | 10Ha |
| 3. | Agro Geo-Cooperative Cells | 50 Ha |
| 4. | Agro Geo-Cooperatives | 250 Ha |
| 5. | Micro Agro Geo–Clusters | 500 – 2500 Ha |
| 6. | Small Agro Geo-Clusters | 2500 – 5000 Ha |
| 7. | Medium Agro Geo-Clusters | 5000 -7000 Ha |
| 8. | Large Agro Geo-Clusters | 7500 – 10,000Ha |
| 9. | Mega Agro Geo-Clusters | 20,000Ha + multiples of 10,000Ha |
- QUESTION: Why is it necessary to form Agro Geo-Cooperatives?
ANSWER: Agro Geo-Cooperatives create large pockets of agricultural production farmlands that provides access to appropriate inputs and services, equipment and technologies, skills and technical assistance, finance and investments for optimised production in order to be able to serve identified domestic consumer, industrial and export markets.
- QUESTION: How does NIRSAL mobilize farmers for Agro Geo-Cooperatives?
ANSWER: Mobilisation of farmers for geo-cooperative formation is carried out using social engineering and field communication strategies including engagements with community leadership structures. NIRSAL also leverages partnerships with existing projects and programs of organisations such as IFAD, USAID, WB, FMARD, etc. for systematic geo-cooperative formation.
- QUESTION: How are Agro Geo-Cooperatives formed?
ANSWER: Geo-cooperatives are formed within validated Agricultural Commodity Ecological Areas (ACEA) for specific 5-4-3-2-1 commodities based on Areas of Responsibilities delineated by the Field ICT Business Unit within Direct Interaction Zones (DIZ) (arable land falling within 50km radius of city boundaries (State Capitals)) or Indirect Interaction Zones (IIZ) (arable land beyond the DIZ).
- QUESTION: What are the other requirements for the formation of Agro Geo-Cooperatives (for the creation of Virtual Asset Titles)?
ANSWER: Geo-cooperative formation also entails field digitization and documentation of geo-coordinates of individual farm plots (Know-Your Farm (KYF)), Farmer data including Bank Verification Number (BVN) Enrolment/Validation (Know your Customer) and mapping of farmer data to productive asset data for the creation of Virtual Asset Titles (VAsT).
- QUESTION: Who appoints field governance leaders?
ANSWER: Field Governance leaders are democratically appointed by the farmers under NIRSAL’s facilitation at block, cell, geo-cooperative and cluster levels.
- QUESTION: What is the responsibility of the field governance leaders in the formation of Agro Geo-Cooperatives?
ANSWER: These leaders have responsibility for further social engineering, team management, delivery of step-down training, information cascade, produce aggregation oversight, etc.
- QUESTION: What are the field and governance structures?
ANSWER:
| S/N | FIELD STRUCTURE | FIELD GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE |
| 1. | Geo Cluster Level | PresidentVice President /SecretaryFinance Director |
| 2. | Geo Cooperative Level | PresidentVice President /SecretaryFinance Director |
| 3. | Cell Level | PresidentVice President /SecretaryFinance Director |
| 4. | Block Level | President |
