BOA Moves To Bridge Financing And Input Gaps For Women Farmers

• BOA is expanding support for women farmers beyond loans to include agricultural inputs, mechanisation, agronomic support and market access.

• Only 3 percent of female farmers in Nigeria are formally enrolled in financial systems, compared with 10 percent of male farmers, according to World Bank data cited by the Bank.

• The initiative is part of boat’s broader effort to bring more than two million smallholder farmers into structured financing and value-chain programmes.

August 17, () — The Bank of Agriculture (BOA) is expanding support for women farmers as it seeks to address gaps in access to finance, agricultural inputs, mechanisation and markets.

The Bank said its approach is designed to ensure agricultural financing goes beyond simply disbursing loans and instead addresses the wider constraints that limit farmers’ productivity and income.

As part of the initiative, BOA recently engaged women farmers in Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, providing agricultural inputs to support their farming activities.

The Bank said the intervention reflects its strategy of linking financing with the resources farmers need throughout the production cycle.

Women farmers remain underserved

Women play a significant role in Nigeria’s agricultural sector but continue to face greater barriers to productive resources.

Estimates cited by the Food and Agriculture Organisation indicate that women account for up to 70 percent of Nigeria’s agricultural workforce.

However, their access to formal financial services remains limited.

Recent World Bank data cited by BOA showed that only 3 percent of female farmers in Nigeria are formally enrolled in financial systems, compared with 10 percent of their male counterparts.

BOA Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Ayodeji Oludare Sotinrin, said addressing the financing gap must go alongside efforts to remove other barriers to production.

“Women are already contributing significantly to agriculture and to Nigeria’s food system. Our responsibility is to ensure that the systems around them give them a better opportunity to produce, grow and participate in the value chain”, he said.

He said farmers also require access to inputs, mechanisation, markets and other services to improve productivity.

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BOA expands structured financing for smallholders

The Bank said the approach is being implemented through its Renewed Hope Smallholder Support and Value Chain Fund, which is working with farmer aggregation companies to bring more than two million smallholder farmers into a structured, Federal Government-backed on-lending framework.

Under the arrangement, farmers are expected to receive financing alongside agricultural inputs, agronomic support and offtake arrangements.

BOA is also deploying a ₦250 billion facility to provide single-digit financing to smallholder farmers, while its ₦1.5 trillion recapitalisation is expected to strengthen its capacity to expand agricultural lending.

Through its Guaranteed Minimum Price Aggregation Programme, the Bank is also connecting farmers producing selected commodities with aggregation systems, accredited warehouses and guaranteed offtake arrangements.

BOA said the initiatives are aimed at reducing production and marketing risks while giving farmers greater certainty over access to markets.

The Bank said improving access to finance and productive resources for women and other underserved smallholders would be critical to increasing domestic food production, strengthening food security and building more resilient agricultural value chains.