The National Assembly has given approval for borrowing of 1.2 billion dollars for agricultural development in Nigeria.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President On Agriculture, Andrew Kwasa disclosed this on Wednesday at a media briefing in Abuja.
He said that the loan would be secured under the Green imperative project which is an agricultural bilateral project between Nigerian government and government of Brazil.
This loan according to Kwara would allow this Nigerian government to use her bilateral negotiation and agreement with Brazil to arrive at a financing which has 3 % annual interest and long gestation period of 15 years.
Kwasa also said that the twin objectives of green imperative project were to support primary production through mechanization and agro processing.
According to him, the loan will be leveraged to private entrepreneurs, who will service the loan, and service centers will be created in all the local governments in Nigeria where these private entrepreneurs will operate.
Mechanization leader, Garba Abdullahi also said that service centers would be of two types, which are the primary service centers dealing with production, and the secondary service centers for agro processing.
Garba said that there would be selection criteria which will give private entrepreneurs leverage to know the equipment and what they need in their service centers, based on comparative advantage and the type of crop to cultivate.
The green imperative which started June 4th 2020 has over 5.7 million farmers that have registered and certified.
The new loan  would provide opportunity to support these farmers  to have access to the zero interest find  that will enable them to improve agricultural production.
