Created in 2013, the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL PLC) plays the parts if measuring, re-pricing, redefining, dimensioning as well as sharing the credit risk involved in the agribusiness. A corporation owned by the Central Bank of Nigeria and a $500million Non-Bank Financial Institution, it is aimed at creating an enabling environment for nominal investments and finance in the agricultural sector through fixing agricultural value chains, reducing risk in the agribusiness finance value chain, developing long-term capacity, and institutionalizing incentives for agricultural lending. To implement these, NIRSAL developed five tactical pillars which are: Technical Assistance, Risk Sharing, Incentives, Insurance and Rating.

NIRSAL’s Mission is: “To forge partnerships between agriculture and finance; maximizing the potential of agriculture for food security, job creation and economic growth”.

WHAT IS DONE AT NIRSAL
NIRSAL majors in all things related to the agribusiness. Its areas of speciality ranges from Finance facilitation, Agribusiness project development Agricultural risk management. Leveraging on inventive models and self-generated Tools, Techniques, Methodologies and Partnerships (TTM&Ps), agriculture and agribusiness is improved, agricultural value chains are incorporated, finance and investments are enabled and agricultural risks are managed, this is peculiar only to NIRSAL.

Products and Services offered at NIRSAL include:

• Interest Drawback Scheme borrowers with good reputation are rewarded with a deduction of up to 40% of interest payable, hence, the effective interest rate is reduced.
• NIRSAL Credit Risk Guarantee (CRG) up to 75% principal and interest is repaid to share credit-related losses with financiers and investors.
• Financing Frameworks for Fertilizer, Grains, Mechanization, etc. to fund specific segments of the value chain.
• Bespoke value chain specific Agribusiness Modelling for primary production and incorporated projects.
• Technical Assistance to support and enable development for both agriculture and agriculture finance actors.
• Innovative Index-Based Insurance to protect farmers from losing revenue resulting from unfavourable weather conditions, pest, diseases and a nosedive anticipated yields.
• Comprehensive field monitoring which encompasses nationwide Project Monitoring, Reporting and Remediation services, remote sensing using UAS-based drone monitoring and satellite-based multispectral imaging.

NIRSAL’s Organizational Accomplishments

• Through its numerous products, programs, initiatives and interventions, NIRSAL has significantly enhanced financial and investment growth of over NGN122.7billion to agricultural value chains.

• The NIRSAL Credit Risk Guarantee has singlehandedly catalyzed the sum of NGN104.89billion into the private sector’s various agricultural value chains with deposit money banks, investment houses and other financial institutions inclusive and with an additional NGN160.5billion from portfolio commitments made by commercial banks.

• NIRSAL has ensured that it recorded less than 1% risk crystallization or claims payout through diligent deployment of system-wide Risk management tools, techniques and methodologies.

• NIRSAL in conjunction with 16 State Governments, have begun collaborating on various primary production programmes.

• NIRSAL has also provided training on Good Agronomic Practices to 374 Extension Workers and 700,000 farmers in the agricultural value chain as well as developed Curriculum and trained over 1,538 Middle Management and Agric.

• In the insurance sector, over 200,000 farmers are utilizing Inventive Index-Based Insurance. Eight ( insurance companies have secured approvals from the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) for the deployment of agricultural Insurance products while being supported by NIRSAL as at Q1 2020.

• Through its various interventions astride In the finance and agriculture sectors especially across agricultural value chains, NIRSAL through its interventions has created over 490,000 jobs and positively impacted over 2.9 million lives.

• Currently, NIRSAL is structuring 4 million hectares of farmland covering 8 million smallholder farmers into 16,000 Agro Geo-Cooperatives for improved primary production and to facilitate the flow of finance and investments across agricultural value chains.