THE ROLES OF BANKING INDUSTRY IN AGRICULTURAL MARKETING IN NIGERIA

          The Roles of the Banking Industry in Agricultural Marketing in Nigeria.

          This project was designed to bring out the roles of banking industry in the agricultural sector of Nigeria economy with Excel Microfinance Bank Eruwa as a case study.

          In the course of writing this project the following hypothesis were formulated to aid the study.

          There is no relationship between banking and agricultural productivity, Bank does not have any significance on agricultural production.

          The employee of Excel Microfinance Bank Eruwa served as the population for this study out of which ten were sampled using simple random sampling method.

          Relevant literatures were reviewed to bring out the submissions and views of various authors on the topic of the study.

          Questionnaires were administered on the staff of Excel Microfinance bank Eruwa and analysis were made on the data collected using simple percentage and responses were converted into percentages.

          All the null hypothesis (Ho) were rejected and alternative hypothesis (Hi) were accepted. The analysis shows that

          i.        There is relationship between banking and agriculture.

          ii.       Banks have significance on agricultural production.

          With respect to the findings the findings the following recommendation were made that, government should encourage farmers to stay on the farm. By providing basic farm implement e.g. improved seedling fertilizer fumigant etc.

          That banks should give loans and advances at a reasonable rate of interest to farmers which in turn brings the banks profits.

          That farmers should use the loans granted for the purpose it was granted.

                 The aim of this research work is to examine the roles of banking industry in the Agricultural sector of the Nigerian Economy. Banking industry comprises of financial institutions that offers to its customers, services of receiving deposits and advancing loans, basically and making fund i.e. credit facilities to the general public and of course to businesses at a fairly low rate of interest which is payable within a specific period of time based on the type of loan or advance being granted to a particular customer.

        Banks in Nigeria include Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mortgage Banks, Development Banks, Merchant Banks, Commercial Banks, and Microfinance Banks among others.

        For adequate financing of Agricultural, there was an existence of Nigerian Agricultural and Co-operative Bank which had its head office in Kaduna, which was established in 1973 to cater for the farmers. As time went by, the ordinary Nigerian i.e the people at the grass-root level were thirsty of banking services and in an attempt to bring banking service to the less privilege. Hence, the need to establish Microfinance Bank which is close to the common man.