The Bank of Agriculture (BOA) has announced an expanded support programme for women farmers, targeting some of the major barriers limiting their productivity and participation in Nigeria’s agricultural value chains.
The initiative will provide greater access to agricultural finance, farm inputs, technology, mechanisation and markets, as the bank seeks to ensure that women farmers can turn financing into actual production and sustainable income. The announcement was reported on August 18, 2026.
Women play a significant role in Nigeria’s agricultural economy, but access to formal financial services remains a major challenge.
The BOA cited World Bank data indicating that only 3 per cent of female farmers in Nigeria are formally enrolled in financial systems, compared with 10 per cent of male farmers. The bank believes closing this financing gap could unlock substantial gains in agricultural production, food security and poverty reduction.
BOA: Finance Alone Is Not Enough
BOA Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Ayodeji Sotinrin, said agricultural financing must be accompanied by the resources farmers require to remain productive.
He explained that women farmers need more than loans to expand their businesses, stressing the importance of access to inputs, mechanisation, technology and markets.
“Agricultural financing cannot end with disbursement,” Sotinrin said, according to the bank’s statement.
The bank said its approach is therefore designed around an integrated agricultural financing ecosystem rather than simply increasing the volume of loans available to farmers.
Support Reaches Women Farmers in FCT
As part of the initiative, BOA recently engaged women farmers in Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, providing support for their ongoing farming activities through agricultural inputs.
The bank said the engagement was intended to help it better understand the challenges faced by farmers and develop interventions around the entire production cycle.
The strategy is also linked to BOA’s Renewed Hope Smallholder Support & Value Chain Fund, through which the bank is working with farmer aggregation companies to bring more than two million smallholder farmers into a structured Federal Government-backed on-lending framework.
The model combines financing with inputs, agronomic support and offtake arrangements.
N250bn Facility for Smallholder Farmers
BOA also disclosed that it is deploying a ₦250 billion facility to provide single-digit financing to smallholder farmers.
The bank said its recently announced ₦1.5 trillion recapitalisation would further strengthen its ability to expand agricultural lending and reach more farmers.
For women farmers, the bank believes this expanded financial capacity could help address the longstanding gender gap in access to productive resources.
Connecting Farmers to Markets
Beyond financing and inputs, BOA is also using its Guaranteed Minimum Price Aggregation Programme to connect farmers producing selected commodities with structured aggregation systems, accredited warehouses and guaranteed offtake.
The arrangement is intended to provide farmers with greater certainty about where and how their produce will be sold.
This is particularly important because access to markets can determine whether increased agricultural production translates into higher household incomes.
Boost for Food Security
The BOA initiative comes as Nigeria continues to pursue greater domestic food production and stronger agricultural value chains.
Women farmers represent an important part of that effort. Expanding their access to capital, inputs, technology and markets could increase production while strengthening household livelihoods.
The bank said it would continue developing partnerships and financing mechanisms aimed at bringing underserved smallholder producers into the formal agricultural economy.
The broader objective is to ensure that agricultural finance produces measurable results on the farm rather than simply increasing the amount of money disbursed.
If successfully implemented, the programme could strengthen women’s contribution to Nigeria’s food system while supporting the country’s wider goals of food security, poverty reduction, job creation and agricultural productivity.
