The Bank of Agriculture (BOA) has announced plans to deepen its support for women farmers by widening access to agricultural finance, inputs and other production resources as part of efforts to increase output, strengthen livelihoods and improve women’s participation in Nigeria’s agricultural value chain.
The bank disclosed this in a statement issued to journalists on Monday, noting that women farmers continue to face significant obstacles, particularly in accessing finance, farm inputs, technology, mechanisation and reliable markets.
BOA said addressing these challenges was important because women remain a major force in Nigeria’s agricultural economy. Citing estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the bank said women account for up to 70 per cent of the agricultural workforce in the country.
Despite their substantial contribution, however, the bank said the productive potential of women farmers remained largely underutilised.
It noted that World Bank evidence had shown that narrowing the gap between men and women in access to productive resources could significantly improve women’s yields and increase overall agricultural output.
According to the bank, achieving such improvements could have wider benefits for food security, household incomes and poverty reduction. However, limited access to formal finance continues to prevent many women farmers from reaching their full productive capacity.
The bank cited recent World Bank data indicating that only three per cent of female farmers in Nigeria were formally enrolled in financial systems, compared with 10 per cent of male farmers.
“For the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), this gap represents both a challenge and an opportunity to expand access to agricultural finance in ways that help women farmers increase production, strengthen their livelihoods and participate more fully in the agricultural value chain,” the bank said.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of BOA, Ayodeji Sotinrin, said improving agricultural finance should involve more than simply making loans available to farmers.
“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. That means looking beyond credit and addressing the other constraints that affect production,” Sotinrin said.
He added that financing would have limited impact if farmers lacked the inputs and infrastructure required to translate capital into actual production.
“Agricultural financing cannot end with disbursement. Farmers need access to inputs, mechanisation, markets and other support required to turn financing into output. That is the ecosystem we are building at the Bank of Agriculture,” he said.
Supporting Women Beyond Credit
As part of its approach, BOA recently engaged a group of women farmers in Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory and supported their ongoing farming activities with agricultural inputs.
The bank said the engagement was designed to give it a better understanding of the practical challenges confronting farmers and help develop interventions that address needs across the entire production cycle.
“For BOA, agricultural finance is not simply about providing credit; it is about ensuring farmers have the resources and opportunities to put that financing to work,” the statement said.
The bank said this philosophy also informed its Renewed Hope Smallholder Support & Value Chain Fund, through which it is working with farmer aggregation companies to bring more than two million smallholder farmers into a structured Federal Government-backed on-lending framework.
“The model combines financing with inputs, agronomic support, and offtake arrangements to increase production rather than simply increasing the volume of credit disbursed,” BOA said.
The institution also disclosed that it was expanding access to affordable agricultural finance through a N250bn facility designed to provide single-digit financing to smallholder farmers.
In addition, BOA said its N1.5tn recapitalisation would significantly improve its ability to reach more farmers and expand agricultural lending across the country.
“For women farmers in particular, expanding access to finance matters because the barriers to production do not exist in isolation,” the bank said.
It added, “Limited access to inputs, technology, mechanisation and markets shapes how much a farmer can produce and how much value they ultimately retain from their work.”
Linking Farmers to Markets
Beyond providing funding, BOA said it was developing a more integrated financing ecosystem that connects farmers with capital as well as the inputs, technology, production support and markets needed to make their businesses more sustainable.
Through its Guaranteed Minimum Price Aggregation Programme, the bank said it was linking farmers producing selected commodities with structured aggregation systems, accredited warehouses and guaranteed offtake arrangements.
The initiative, according to BOA, is intended to give farmers greater certainty about the market for their produce while reducing some of the risks associated with selling agricultural commodities.
“Across these interventions, the objective remains to make agricultural finance more meaningful to the farmer by connecting capital to the real needs of production,” the statement said.
BOA said closing the gap between farmers’ productive potential and access to resources would remain critical as Nigeria seeks to increase domestic food production, improve food security and build more resilient agricultural value chains.
The bank said it would continue to strengthen partnerships, financing mechanisms and value-chain programmes aimed at bringing more farmers, particularly underserved smallholder producers, into the formal agricultural economy.
According to the statement, the overall objective is to create “stronger pathways from finance to production and from production to market,” ensuring that agricultural financing translates into higher output, stronger incomes and greater participation across the value chain.