Sterling Bank Plc in conjunction with the Africa Agriculture and Trade Investment Fund (AATIF), is set to promote environment-friendly agriculture businesses by lending the sum of $15 million to sustainable and renewable energypowered Agric enterprises.
The $15 million medium-term facility from the Africa Agriculture and Trade Investment Fund extends our partnership with Sterling Bank, which started in 2019 with an initial vision to support the growth of the bank’s agricultural activities. Since then, Sterling Bank and AATIF have worked together on numerous projects, with the bank making commendable contributions to the Nigerian agricultural sector.
Group head for Agriculture and Solid Minerals Finance, Dr Olushola Obikanye, said the funding will further deepen Sterling’s agricultural investments in the agribusiness industry, promote sustainable practices, and encourage farmers to explore environment-friendly systems.
Group head for Energy, Sterling Bank, Dele Faseemo, said the fund will seek to increase Sterling’s funding for renewable energy installations in the agricultural sector and will positively impact lending in the sector as well as the Nigerian economy.
Chair of the AATIF Board of Directors, Ms Doris Koehn said;“when we first invested in Sterling Bank, we were keen to help actualize its impressive ambitions in growing its agricultural portfolio in Nigeria. Four and a half years later, we are proud to renew our partnership with the Bank and are focused on further enabling its efforts towards serving local smallholder farmers.”
The Sterling Bank has become renowned as one of the key partners and lenders to the agricultural sector, with over N100 billion, or approximately 13 percent of its lending portfolio, currently financing agricultural businesses across Nigeria.
This, amongst other initiatives such as the Agriculture Summit Africa; the continent’s largest private sector-driven conference on the industry, and the Nigerian Farmers’ Radio; an educative radio programme promoting good agricultural practices aired in all geo-political zones of Nigeria, has endeared the bank to primary producers, aggregators, commodity processors, and exporters. These initiatives recently saw Sterling awarded the best-participating bank by the Agric Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund.
