SPEECH OF MD/CEO OF NIRSAL PLC, ALIYU ABDULHAMEED, DURING NIRSAL FARMERS BUSINESS SCHOOL LAUNCH ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 26, 2021
Protocol
Introduction
• Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be here today to announce yet another milestone in NIRSAL Plc’s quest to make activities in Nigeria’s agricultural value chain more efficient.
• Having been at the forefront of Agriculture and Agribusiness innovations in the last five years, NIRSAL Plc hardly needs any introduction. But we always oblige our audiences by re-echoing what we have been tasked by our owners to accomplish.
• The Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL Plc) is a US$500million Non-Bank Financial Institution and a wholly-owned corporation of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), designed to Redefine, Dimension, Measure, Re-Price and Share agribusiness-related credit risk.
• It was created to stimulate the flow of affordable finance and investments into the agriculture sector by de-risking the agribusiness finance value chain, fixing agricultural value chains, building long-term capacity, and institutionalizing incentives for agricultural lending through its five (5) strategic pillars namely: Risk Sharing, Insurance, Technical Assistance, Incentives and Rating.
• Out of its Technical Assistance pillar come efforts geared towards providing support mechanisms that plug information gaps, boost entrepreneurial capacities, and improve access to commercial finance for stakeholders across agricultural commodity value chains.
• Out of it has now come the NIRSAL Farmers Business School, a platform that will provide convenient, bespoke training on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) to Nigeria’s smallholder farmers.
The NIRSAL Farmers Business School
• For so long, NIRSAL has contemplated a conduit through which its interactions with farmers and other agricultural value chain stakeholders can be carried on seamlessly and cost-effectively.
• Upon its signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET), that need was again highlighted in regard to the prompt dissemination of vital weather information to farmers in the fields as they become available.
• Due to the painstaking work of our partners – Successory Nigeria Limited, and collaborators – MTN Nigeria and FBIS Technologies, an innovative solution to this challenge has now materialized: it is the NIRSAL Farmers Business School (NFBS).
• The NIRSAL Farmers Business School will address the lack of access to information which is critical to the success of production cycles, particularly in the face of changing weather and climatic conditions.
• These changes presuppose that the guidance of diverse professionals like meteorologists, agronomists, soil scientists, market researchers, and so on must be funnelled into primary production activities to help farmers achieve the best possible outcomes.
• Under this partnership that has birthed the NIRSAL Farmers Business School, NIRSAL Plc will be able to:
1. Sustainably build the capacity of smallholder farmers on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP).
2. Help farmers to make better decisions in real-time by providing vital information seamlessly.
3. Improve farm yields thereby lessening the risk of loan defaults.
4. Help transition Nigeria’s farmers from an era of agriculture to the new era of agribusiness.
• Despite the novelty of the NIRSAL Farmers Business School platform, it is remarkably easy and affordable to subscribe to and use.
1. First and foremost, we have a platform that does not require smartphones or internet connectivity to function. It is accessible offline and on-the-go.
2. Secondly, it is a multilanguage platform that utilizes proprietary audio and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology, meaning that farmers can use it to learn in their own language and at their own pace.
3. Thirdly, it will cost N100 only per week for a subscriber to access the courses and assessments due them, N50 only for additional information like market opportunities and weather forecasts, and N20 only to receive step-by-step guidance on performing specific farm activities like pest control and fertilizer application.
4. Also very importantly, for NIRSAL Plc, its owners the CBN, the Federal Government, Banks, and other investors in agricultural primary production, the platform will promote the inclusion of farmers in the use of ICT and limit physical classroom engagements in line with the new normal.
5. It will boost the yield and productivity of farmers leading to higher revenue per hectare or per unit of production, and thus better the capacity of farmers to repay their loans and generate surplus income.
• It is not only farmers that will enjoy the ease which the NIRSAL Farmers Business School brings; our staff, who have been wading through towns, villages and bushes to perform their training and capacity building assignments, will use this platform too.
• Moreso, given that they have had to face the apathy of many rural farmers towards scholarly mentorship programs, a chunk of the burden of converging in classroom settings has now been taken away.
Conclusion
• I would like to thank our partners, Successory Nigeria Limited, who have worked tirelessly in the development, ground truthing and deployment of this smart information and decision support system.
• May I also thank MTN Nigeria for providing the conduit through which our ceaseless interactions with farmers will now run – everywhere they are, everywhere they go!
• FBIS Technologies have enriched this collaboration with their unique strength in the simplification of technology for use by all. I thank them too.
• The onus now lies on us all to enrich the NIRSAL Farmers Business School with thoroughly considered content upon which farmers can rely for unmatched success on the farms.
• We at NIRSAL will continue to source and secure partnerships that will be helpful to the livelihood of farmers all over the country, especially as we now have a platform for broadcasting valuable information promptly.
• We urge all farmers in Nigeria, and indeed all agriculture stakeholders, to embrace new technologies and grow their farming business. To do this, the NIRSAL Farmers Business School is a good place to start.
• Thank you all for your time and for honouring our invitation to this event.
