FIRST Bank of Nigeria Plc has expressed strong commitment to agricultural financing. This, it says, was to play an exemplary role in the development of the nation’s agricultural and allied sectors.
As a financial supermarket, the bank promises both the rural and urban farmers financial assistance to help them grow more crops.
To this end, it has launched various agricultural schemes to suit the entire range of micro, small, medium and large agricultural businesses.
Revealing the ‘First Bank Farm Settlement Scheme’, the firm notes that it is a programme designed to create a community where Nigerian youths interested in agriculture can live and work together on individual farm projects in all the states of the federation.
The scheme, it says, is a classical model of the much desired public-private sector partnership involving the bank, a state government and the CBN.
Under the arrangement, the state government provides the infrastructure, while the bank provides working capital and the young farmers contribute their skill and manpower. Stating the objectives of the product, the bank says, it is to complement government’s effort to create employment, engender national food security as well as inculcate and stimulate pride in the agricultural profession among young Nigerians.
It however says, the scheme is meant for a new generation of economic actors and employers of labour so as to contribute to rural development.
Speaking on the ‘Guaranteed Fund Credit (GFC)’, the firm states that the product allows people to access credit facility of up to N1million as a farmer even when such person can only provide 25 per cent security cover for the borrowing. Farmers with collateral can access as much as N10million under this scheme, says the bank.
First Bank says, the GFC provides credit for various agricultural enterprises under a guarantee fund model. This, it notes, derives its essence from the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). It also enables farmers to enjoy a refund of up to 40 per cent of interest paid on credit facilities under an Interest Draw Back Programme sponsored by the federal government and CBN, First bank indicates.
In a bid to take agricultural credit campaign of the firm to schools, it equally unveiled the ‘First Bank Agricultural Credit to Schools (Facts).’
The product provides working capital loans to secondary schools and tertiary institutions with agricultural and agro-allied projects.
The scheme, according to the bank, facilitates the commercialization of school farm projects/ businesses in secondary and tertiary institutions that have agricultural science programmes, pilot farms, bakeries or related projects.
Although serving primarily to impact knowledge to students, such school projects provide an avenue for the schools to diversify their sources of revenue in the face of insufficient funding says the bank. This, it indicates, equally stimulates interest in agribusiness and agricultural profession among youths.