- Bank’s farm lending rises to ₦277bn as industry struggles to fund value addition
James Emejo in Abuja
Sterling Bank and partners are targeting a $300 million investment pipeline from the Agriculture Summit Africa (ASA) 2026 as the bank seeks to drive agricultural finance beyond farm production.
The bank aims to attract financing into processing, logistics, storage and other businesses capable of retaining more value within African economies.
The initiative comes as Sterling’s own agricultural lending had climbed to ₦277 billion, representing 18 per cent of its loan book as of April 2026, up 30 per cent year-on-year.
Despite the increase in agricultural credit, the sector continues to face a deeper financing problem – converting production into commercially viable businesses, industrial capacity and higher-value exports.
Managing Director/Chief Executive, Sterling Bank, Mr. Abubakar Suleiman, said the next frontier of agricultural finance must therefore be the part of the value chain where much of the economic value is currently lost.
Speaking at the summit in Abuja, he said, “The true measure of a summit is not the quality of its speeches, rather, it is the quantity of its consequences.
“Our work is to convert conversations into projects, projects into finance, finance into productive capacity, and productive capacity into affordable food.”
Suleiman stressed that simply increasing the volume of agricultural credit would not be sufficient to transform the sector unless capital also followed the commodity beyond the farm gate.
Sterling’s experience provides a measure of how far agricultural financing has already moved.
The bank said agriculture accounted for less than one per cent of its loan book when it began its deliberate push into the sector 14 years ago. By April 2026, the portfolio had risen to ₦277 billion, accounting for 18 per cent of total lending.
Over the period, the bank said it had deployed over $500 million to support agricultural output in the country.
The financing supported businesses that generated over one million jobs and added over one million metric tonnes to national agricultural output, while more than 150,000 smallholder farmers and businesses were brought into the formal financial system.
The bank however, considers more consequential opportunity beyond increasing production.
Suleiman cited cassava as a telling example, Nigeria being the world’s largest producer of cassava but accounts for only about two per cent of the global processed cassava market.
“We grow most of it, and we keep almost none of what it is worth. The gap, therefore, is not a farming problem, but one about ownership,” he said.
According to him, higher farm output can increase agricultural GDP, but local processing creates a much wider economic chain—manufacturing activity, jobs, tax revenues, export earnings and demand for transportation, energy, packaging, technology and financial services.
It also offers a route out of the recurring contradiction in which African countries export relatively low-value commodities while importing higher-value products made from similar raw materials.
In his submission, Managing Director, Sunbeth Global Concepts, Olasunkanmi Owoyemi, said the company was moving beyond the export of raw cocoa and other commodities into domestic processing.
Represented by Head of Sustainable Sourcing, Africa, at Sunbeth’s London-based trading arm, SFI Agri Commodities,
Jason Green, Owoyemi disclosed that the company is developing two processing plants at its Sunbeth Industrial Park—a 70,000-tonne cocoa processing facility and an 80,000-tonne cashew processing facility—both expected to commence operations in 2027.
The federal government is also seeking to support that transition by reducing some of the risks that discourage private investment.
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, said Africa possessed about two-thirds of the world’s remaining uncultivated arable land but still spent over $100 billion annually on food imports.
He said government’s responsibility was to make private investments bankable rather than displace private capital, pointing to interventions such as the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) programme.
Kyari disclosed, that the first phase had mobilised $520 million in co-financing from development partners across seven states and the Federal Capital Territory.
“Our task in government is to make those investments bankable, not to take your place,” he said.
Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi, similarly linked food sovereignty to control of the food chain rather than simply eliminating imports.
Suleiman said the bank would work to structure investment opportunities identified at ASA 2026, support financing for shortlisted projects and track whether commitments ultimately translate into deployed capital.
He said the bank had already mobilised more than $100 million in blended finance from development partners, pointing to a financing model that combines commercial lending with development finance and risk-sharing mechanisms to reduce the risks associated with agricultural investment.
Sterling Bank’s FarmPass initiative, developed with Rabobank and Mastercard, is targeting 250,000 smallholder farmers for integration into the formal financial system over seven years. More than 10,000 farmers have been onboarded during the pilot phase.
The bank had also launched AgricHub, a platform designed to connect farmers and agribusinesses with financiers, markets and agricultural technology providers.