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NIRSAL set to empower 225,000 farmers

By Gbenga Akinfenwa
04 January 2018   |   4:18 am
The Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agriculture (NIRSAL) has deployed a nationwide field structure to support 225,000 farmers.

Farmers

The Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agriculture (NIRSAL) has deployed a nationwide field structure to support 225,000 farmers.

The programme is under the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Anchor Borrowers’ Scheme (ABP).

Known as the Project Monitoring Reporting and Remediation Office (PMRO), it has units lin each of the states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The Managing Director/CEO of NIRSAL, Mr. Aliyu Abbati Abdulhameed, explained that the PMROs would play a supportive role because NIRSAL runs a lean operation at its corporate headquarters.

He said the programme is part of efforts to take business-driven agriculture to the grassroots.

NIRSAL, which the CBN appointed as implementation partner in the ABP, is deploying the PMROs to support an initial number of about 225,000 farmers throughout the country under the programme.

The farmers being supported include a minimum of 5,000 farmers in 37 locations in the 36 states and the FCT.

The PMROs are designed to support NIRSAL’s core mandate of making agriculture more attractive for the private sector investment by de-risking the agricultural value chain.

Among other functions, they would provide rigorous monitoring and supervision of NIRSAL-facilitated agriculture projects to improve successful outcomes.

Abdulhameed said the PMRO structure is very critical to the organisation’s operations, noting that they would act as its eyes.

The National Coordinating Consultant overseeing the PMRO structure, Dr. Steven Ogidan, said: “The closeness of the PMROs to project sites and the embedding of project monitoring services within the project sites of any project that is more than 500m. It would ensure effective monitoring and reduces the risk of loan diversion.”

Part of their mandates is to ensure that the agricultural projects that NIRSAL facilitated are executed in line with agreed terms.

Abdulhameed had explained that the PMROs would also have the responsibility of capturing the impact of NIRSAL’s interventions on communities, individual farmers and other players along the agricultural value chain.

“The positive impact made is the justification for our existence so it’s critical to constantly measure and review the impact of our interventions,” he said.

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