Sterling Bank and its partners are targeting a $300 million investment pipeline from Agriculture Summit Africa 2026 as attention shifts from financing agricultural production alone to building the processing, storage and logistics infrastructure required to retain more value within African economies.
The initiative reflects a growing argument among agricultural investors that Africa’s challenge is not simply producing more commodities but developing the industrial capacity to process them before export.
Sterling Bank’s agricultural loan portfolio had reached ₦277 billion by April 2026, representing about 18 per cent of its total lending and an increase of 30 per cent compared with the previous year.
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Sterling Bank, Abubakar Suleiman, said financing must increasingly extend beyond farms to businesses involved in processing, storage, transportation and other stages of the agricultural value chain.
The bank’s involvement in agriculture has expanded considerably over the past 14 years. Agriculture accounted for less than one per cent of its lending when the strategy began, compared with 18 per cent today.
Sterling said more than $500 million had been deployed to support agricultural production during the period.
According to the bank, businesses supported through the financing have generated more than one million jobs, contributed over one million metric tonnes to agricultural output and helped bring more than 150,000 small farmers and businesses into the formal financial system.
Suleiman, however, argued that increased production would have limited economic impact if Nigeria continued exporting commodities without capturing the value generated from processing.
He pointed to cassava as an example. Nigeria is a major producer of the crop but captures only a small proportion of the global processed cassava market.
Domestic processing, he said, could generate additional manufacturing activity, employment, tax revenue and export earnings while creating demand for transportation, energy, packaging, technology and financial services.
Sunbeth Global Concepts is pursuing a similar strategy.
The company disclosed that it is developing a 70,000 tonne cocoa processing facility and an 80,000 tonne cashew processing plant at its industrial park, with operations expected to begin in 2027.
The Federal Government is also seeking to reduce some of the investment risks associated with agricultural processing.
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, said government intervention should focus on making private agricultural investments commercially viable rather than attempting to replace private capital.
He cited the Special Agro Industrial Processing Zones programme, whose first phase has attracted $520 million in financing from development partners across seven states and the Federal Capital Territory.
Sterling Bank said it has already mobilized more than $100 million in blended finance and plans to structure viable projects emerging from Agriculture Summit Africa for investment.
Its FarmPass programme is targeting 250,000 small farmers for entry into the formal financial system over seven years, while AgricHub is intended to connect farmers and agricultural businesses with finance, markets and technology.
The larger objective is to ensure that African agriculture creates wealth not only on farms but throughout the industrial chain that converts raw commodities into higher value products.
