By Onu Okorie

Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending NIRSAL Plc Mr Sa’ad Hamidu, has disclosed that it approved credit risk guarantees for agricultural loans worth more than ₦100 billion in 2025, with the figure already surpassed in 2026 year-to-date..
Hamidu said the guarantees represented commercial capital flowing to farmers, processors, aggregators, exporters and other businesses operating across several agricultural value chains.
He made the disclosure at the AFRACA Masterclass on Inclusive Finance for Climate Resilience and Artificial Intelligence for Financial Services and Agricultural Finance, organised by the African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (AFRACA) in collaboration with NIRSAL Plc and other partners in Lagos.
NIRSAL was represented at the opening by its Executive Director, Operations, Mr Ewaen Imohe, who delivered a welcome address on behalf of Hamidu.
According to the NIRSAL chief executive, the growth in guaranteed lending is reflected in the increasing participation of financial institutions in agricultural finance.
He said NIRSAL’s interventions were designed to address one of the major constraints to agricultural financing in Africa — inadequate understanding and management of risks associated with the sector.
“At NIRSAL, we have always maintained that agriculture, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, is not underfinanced because opportunities do not exist, but because the risks have not been sufficiently understood, measured, appropriately priced, and managed,” Hamidu said.
He explained that NIRSAL had responded by co-developing systems and financing frameworks aimed at bringing greater structure to agricultural value chains, defining and mitigating risks, and improving financial institutions’ confidence to lend to the sector.
Non-interest Banks Account for Over 50% of Guaranteed Loans
Hamidu disclosed that non-interest financial institutions accounted for more than 50 per cent of loans guaranteed by NIRSAL in the first half of 2026.
He said the development demonstrated the potential for different forms of capital to participate in agricultural financing when appropriate risk-sharing mechanisms were put in place.
“AFRACA, for us, is a platform for knowledge, continental exchange, and global insight. On our part, we remain a results-driven source of practical experience for AFRACA member countries,” he said.
The NIRSAL boss said the collaboration between the two organisations combines AFRACA’s continental network and knowledge-sharing platform with NIRSAL’s practical experience in agricultural risk-sharing, value-chain development and finance facilitation.
Climate Change Driving Need for New Financing Skills
Hamidu described the masterclass as timely, noting that climate change had moved beyond being an abstract global concern to become a practical challenge confronting farmers, agribusinesses and financial institutions during every production season.
He said financial institutions needed to deepen their expertise in climate-risk assessment, adaptation and mitigation, development of climate rationales, green-project structuring and access to specialised climate-finance mechanisms.
The first major theme of the programme, Inclusive Finance for Climate Resilience, exposed participants to tools and approaches for understanding climate risks and developing financeable adaptation and mitigation projects.
Dr Chris Myungu of the Alliance of Bioversity International & CIAT (CGIAR), one of the programme’s partners, introduced participants to the Africa Adaptation Atlas and CGIAR climate-rationale outputs.
The resources, he explained, could help financial institutions use climate data, research and evidence to identify and design investments capable of withstanding climate-related risks.
Hamidu said the sessions were intended to translate climate finance from a broad development concept into practical knowledge that financial institutions could use to identify viable projects and mobilise.