In a significant stride toward strengthening rural entrepreneurship and food security, the National Entrepreneurship Research Institute (NERI) has entered a strategic partnership with the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL). The collaboration is designed to unlock new pathways for agribusiness financing, targeting underserved rural entrepreneurs across Nigeria’s agricultural heartlands.
The formal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed at a high-level event in Abuja, attended by key stakeholders from the agriculture, finance, and policy sectors. The joint initiative will focus on delivering affordable, low-risk funding options, improving technical support, and expanding market access for micro and small agribusinesses.
Speaking at the MoU signing, NERI Director General emphasized that the partnership represents a new era in agricultural entrepreneurship.
“Rural agribusinesses are often excluded from the mainstream economy, not for lack of ideas, but for lack of structured support,” she stated. “Through this alliance with NIRSAL, we aim to make agriculture not just sustainable, but investable.”
The program is built around the principle of risk de-risking, a strategy that reduces the perceived financial risks of lending to agribusinesses. With NIRSAL’s proven track record in developing credit guarantees and loan monitoring systems, the collaboration is expected to empower more smallholder farmers, cooperatives, and agri-processors to scale their operations.
The first phase of the partnership will begin with a 12-month pilot in Benue, Kaduna, and Cross River states, regions selected for their active farming clusters and agritech potential. One hundred rural entrepreneurs across the three states will benefit from:
- Customized loan packages with single-digit interest rates
- Enterprise development training from NERI’s rural enterprise experts
- Ongoing business diagnostics and advisory sessions
- Market linkage support to connect them to buyers, processors, and exporters
These entrepreneurs were selected through a competitive process that evaluated not only their business models but also the scalability, sustainability, and community impact of their agribusiness ideas.
The partnership isn’t only about finance, it’s about building a sustainable ecosystem for agripreneurs. NERI and NIRSAL have outlined joint plans to introduce:
- A Rural Agribusiness Accelerator Program
- A Digital Agripreneurship Dashboard to track the progress of supported businesses
- Annual Policy Impact Roundtables to evaluate how the program can shape state and national-level agricultural and MSME policies
In the words of NIRSAL’s Managing Director, Mr. Aliyu Abdulhameed: “Agriculture must be treated as a business. And businesses thrive on data, structure, and access. This partnership delivers all three.”
NERI will also play a central role in conducting impact assessments and real-time data analysis on agribusiness trends in rural communities, feeding this information back to government institutions, banks, and NGOs. The institute will publish a mid-term review of the pilot program in early 2026, offering insights on credit performance, business growth metrics, and community impact.
Already, plans are underway to replicate the model in Kano, Ekiti, and Niger states by 2027.
This collaboration between NERI and NIRSAL marks a new chapter for agripreneurs who have historically been underserved by Nigeria’s financial systems. By combining rigorous research, smart funding models, and on-the-ground mentorship, the program is positioned to transform how rural enterprise is financed, tracked, and scaled.
As Mrs. Eze succinctly put it during her closing remarks: “Agriculture is not just a way of life, it is a viable pathway to wealth creation. And NERI is here to ensure that every farmer with a vision gets the tools to make it real.”
