By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Players in the Nigerian rice value chain has received loans worth N34 billion from Fidelity Bank Plc to unlock spontaneous financing opportunities for a large swathe of paddy rice farmers with significant contributions to the expansion of national paddy rice output.
According to the Managing Director/CEO of Fidelity, Mrs Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe, this has had a significant positive impact on the nation’s economy.
“Through our interventions in the rice space, we have created a positive impact in rural communities by way of farmer empowerment and employment generation. This is also in alignment with the business sustainability imperative of our banking business,” she said.
It would be recalled that only recently, the bank part-financed the construction of a 400 metric tons per day mega rice mill in Kano state-owned by the Gerawa Group of Companies.
Shedding light on the bank’s activities further down the value chain, Mrs Onyeali-Ikpe stated that the bank directly financed the construction and installation of several integrated rice mills across different geo-political zones in Nigeria. These rice mills have a combined rice milling capacity in excess of 500,000 MT per annum.
Recognizing the importance of the last mile traders in the value chain, she noted, “We have also provided low-cost funds to rice traders to purchase rice from indigenous rice millers for sale to the final consumers. This has helped in stabilizing the prices of locally produced rice.”
Whilst stressing the importance of imbibing sustainability practices, Mrs Onyeali-Ikpe pointed out that the bank has modelled effective social and environmental sustainability frameworks into its agribusiness deal structuring workflow to address social and environmental sustainability requirements.
This, she adds, follows the CBN’s Sustainable Banking Principles and Sector Guideline, IFC Performance Standards and Equator Principles.
The bank’s activities have continued to receive recognition by operators, funding partners and all other actors in the agribusiness space.
At the Bankers’ Committee meeting of December 2019, for instance, Fidelity Bank was awarded the second position in Sustainable Agriculture Transaction of the year.
