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Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) has approved N1.8 billion (about $5million) for Doreo Partners to train 50,000 farmers in the Babangona Outgrower Farming Scheme in line with the Federal Government’s efforts to boost agriculture and reduce the economy’s dependence on oil exports. NSIA manages the Nigeria Sovereign Wealth Fund.   Alhaji Sanusi Lamido  Emir of Kano and Chairman, Doreo Partners Mr. Uche Orji, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NSIA, who disclosed this at the agreement signing ceremony in Lagos last weekend said the facility is a term loan with a two-year moratorium aimed at adding another 50,000 farmers by 2021 to the fast growing farming scheme. Babban Gona, which means “great farm” in Hausa, is an agricultural franchise, developed by Doreo Partners, a firm with a proven track record of exclusively investing in profitable, high growth, early stage businesses that improve the livelihoods of Nigerian smallholder farmers. ...

Muhammadu Sanusi II, Emir of Kano Muhammadu Sanusi II, Emir of Kano, has charged the management of Sterling Bank to focus more on agriculture financing in support of the Federal Government’s goals of diversifying the economy to address the country’s almost total dependence on proceeds from the oil and gas sector. Sanusi who is also a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) advised the bank to build on its pioneering work in Non-Interest Banking (NIB) by focusing on the agriculture sector. He said this while delivering a keynote address at a one-day conference organized by Sterling Bank on Non-Interest Banking in Kano recently. In 2017, Sterling Bank Plc won the Best Bank in Support of Agriculture Award at the Business Day Banking Awards and Agric Bank of the Year 2017 at the Nigeria Agriculture Awards Committee. The bank also won the Best Agric Finance Bank of the Year 2016 from the Zamfara branch of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Best Performing Ba...