The total amount of credit granted by Deposit Money Banks to the agricultural sector declined by N34.45bn from October 2016 and September 2017, an analysis of the banking sector credit report by the National Bureau of Statistics has revealed. In the report, which was obtained by our correspondent on Thursday, credit from the banks to the agricultural sector declined from N525.9bn to N491.49bn in the period.
Further analysis of the report showed that as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2016, the total credit received by the agriculture sector was 3.26 per cent of the entire banking sector credit to the economy. The figure, however, declined by 150 basis points to 3.11 per cent as of the end of the third quarter of 2017.
The decline in credit to the agricultural sector may not be in line with the Federal Governments objective for the sector as contained in its Economic Recovery and Growth Plan.
The plan stipulates that the government will pursue agricultural promotion policies that will enable the sector to record an average annual growth rate of 6.92 per cent between 2017 and 2020.
In order to achieve this, a lot of strategies have been outlined. Some of them are boosting productivity in the crop and other sub sectors, including fisheries, forestry and livestock; integrating the value chain; and improving access to market. Others are de-risking agricultural lending by expanding the scope of the Nigerian Incentive Based Risk Sharing for Agricultural Lending through sufficient and timely funding and expansion of the use of dams for commercial farming and aqua culture.
(Punch)
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