By 'Gbenga Bankole
Heritage Bank Plc, Nigeria’s most innovative banking service
provider, has said it is committed to the sustenance, growth and development of
Nigeria’s agricultural sector.
Divisional Head of Corporate Communications, Heritage Bank,
Mr. Fela Ibidapo, who disclosed this in a statement recently, said the bank is
committed to leading the way in agricultural financing in the country.
Ibidapo explained that Heritage Bank, in its determination
to deliver on this promise, is currently funding various agricultural projects
in several states of the country, especially in Oyo, Kaduna and Zamfara states.
He said Heritage Bank has entered into a partnership with
the Oyo State Government to support the multi-billion Oyo State Agricultural
Initiative (OYSAI), a programme designed to revive agriculture, boost
agro-allied businesses and empower the youth and women across the state through
the creation of thousands of jobs in the sector.
According to him, Heritage Bank is also supporting an
agro-investor, Triton Aqua Africa Limited (TAAL), with a N2 billion facility in
collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under the Commercial
Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS). The facility will enable TAAL to set up a fishery
production chain in Lagos, Oyo and Osun states.
Ibidapo said this support to the agro-investor became
imperative after research showed that Nigerians consume about 2.7 million
metric tonnes of fish yearly compared to the paltry 800,000 metric tonnes of
fish that is produced locally every year.
Consequently, the country has had to rely on importation to
augment the shortfall with an estimated cost implication of about $700 million
yearly in foreign exchange.
He said the partnership between Heritage Bank and TAAL would
help reverse the trend, adding that the firm will use the facility to expand
its aquaculture businesses by setting up a nursery/hatchery for the production
of fingerlings and brood stock as well as earthen ponds for catfish and tilapia
in the three states.
Under the arrangement, TAAL is expected to assist
small-scale farms in the three states to increase their fish production by
making fingerlings available to them. In the short term, the loan is expected
to help the group double its current production capacity of 25,000 metric
tonnes with a projection to scale it up to 100,000 metric tonnes in five years.
Ultimately, the partnership between Heritage Bank and TAAL
will help to boost local production, conserve scarce foreign exchange and enhance
food security, and ultimately result in the creation of hundreds of new jobs.
Heritage Bank is also supporting thousands of smallholder
farms in Kaduna and Zamfara states. The smallholder farmers stand to benefit
from the bank’s financial support for rice and soya beans production under the
CBN’s Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP).
Ibidapo said the bank’s drive to support the agriculture
sector is an act of patriotism aimed at helping the government’s desire to
achieve food security and sufficiency in the country. It is also based on the
conviction that agribusiness can be profitable, he said.
He noted that there are myriads of constraints facing the
agriculture sector such as poor road network and electricity supply to
farmlands that are mostly located in the rural areas while majority of the
smallholder farms are financially excluded with no access to banking services.
He said the bank is taking steps to clear the bottlenecks
for smallholder farmers who wish to gain access to banking services.
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