Afreximbank Commits Over $3 Billion to Nigerian Agriculture in the Last 2 Years

Dayo Thomas

The African Export-Import Bank has moved decisively into Nigeria’s agriculture space. In just the last 2 years, Afreximbank has announced and signed commitments worth over $3 billion directly tied to Nigerian farming, food security, agro-processing, and exports. The focus has shifted from just trade finance to building entire agricultural value chains from the farm to the export dock.

The centerpiece of Afreximbank’s intervention was signed at IATF 2025 in Algiers. It is a US$1 billion Collaboration Agreement with the Bank of Agriculture to create a National Smallholder Farmers Fund.

This matters because smallholders produce over 90% of Nigeria’s agricultural output but are also the most excluded from formal finance. They represent about 95% of everyone in the agriculture value chain yet struggle with costly inputs, poor storage, and no reliable market.

The fund is designed to fix those gaps. It will provide affordable credit for seeds, fertilizers, agrochemicals and mechanization. It will finance storage facilities and aggregation centers to cut post-harvest losses. It will also build direct linkages so farmers can sell to processors and exporters instead of being trapped by middlemen.

To make the money flow, Afreximbank will guarantee BOA loans to reduce credit risk, and it will use currency swap arrangements to convert dollar funding to Naira. That protects farmers from exchange rate shocks. BOA MD Ayo Sotinrin called it a bold commitment to move farmers “beyond subsistence farming into sustainable and profitable agribusiness.

Beyond the BOA fund, Afreximbank signed a $2 billion Memorandum of Understanding with the AfCFTA Secretariat and the World Food Programme. This program targets farmers, agro-processors, and commodity traders across Africa, with Nigeria as a key beneficiary.

The money is meant to boost productive capacity, expand agro-processing, support climate-smart agriculture, and deepen intra-African trade in food. Afreximbank officials say agriculture is Africa’s strongest path to industrialization, jobs, and exports, and this financing is how they plan to unlock it.

Finance means little if Nigerian produce cannot enter global markets. To solve that, Afreximbank built the Africa Quality Assurance Centre in Sagamu, Ogun State. It tests and certifies crops to meet international standards. The center is now being expanded to Kaduna and Imo States to serve more farming clusters.

The message from the Bank is clear: when your product is certified by AQAC, you can enter global markets with fewer rejections. For crops like ginger from Southern Kaduna, this removes one of the biggest barriers to export.

Afreximbank is also funding the information side of farming. It gave a $100,000 grant to the American University of Nigeria for the A-YUNIAMS project. This mobile platform gives rural farmers real-time updates on farming techniques, financial opportunities, market prices, and weather. The goal is to reach 60% of Nigeria’s 40 million farmers through mobile services.

Altogether, Afreximbank’s commitments in the last 2 years point to 4 real changes on the ground. Credit will be cheaper and more available. Risk will be lower because of guarantees and FX protection. Markets will be stronger through better storage and direct buyer linkages. And Nigerian products will be more export-ready through quality certification closer to the farms.

For farmers in Southern Kaduna, the Kaduna AQAC expansion and the BOA smallholder fund are the two most direct opportunities to watch.

As Afreximbank’s Acting Regional COO Alain Mbongue said, the goal is to find “African solutions to African problems” and build food sovereignty under AfCFTA.