Africa-Press – Eswatini. Farmers and aspiring farmers are missing out on opportunities to grow their businesses, as funds that might be helping them were available and often not fully utilised.
The National Agricultural Marketing Board (NAMBoard) Chief Executive Officer Bhekizwe Maziya has indicated that the uptake of E10 million Horticulture Revolving Fund was very poor from farmers. Speaking on national radio yesterday morning, Maziya said since its inception, only a few farmers had applied and were able to access the fund and get the necessary financial support. NAMBoard launched the Horticulture Revolving Fund in partnership with EswatiniBank at the end of 2022. This fund provides loans without the need for collateral or deposit.
Barriers
The purpose of this Revolving Fund Loan scheme is to increase access to financial aid for horticulture farmers by reducing barriers for those who may not qualify under normal financing models. In an interview with this publication, EswatiniBank Agri-Business Manager Mazibuse Khumalo concurred with the NAMBoard CEO that indeed the uptake was very poor. Khumalo explained that since December 2022 to date, 25 applications were received and they amounted to over E2.7 million. He said, however, out of this number, 10 were approved and they received funding of up to E921 696 000 and the 14 were declined due to several reasons.
Khumalo explained that the requirements for these loans were quite seamless and farmers were getting subsided interest rates. He explained that farmers can access up to E500 000 through this fund. Khumalo stated that the maximum loan that a startup farmer can access is E100 000, while an already established farmer can access up to the E500 000. He stated that the key factors they considered when processing the applications included viability of the businesses. He said they also did background check for blacklisted clients and those unfortunately do not qualify for the loans.
Khumalo added that they also consider adaptability to climate change by the farmers. He said it was important for farmers to have insurances to cover themselves in cases of natural disasters like storms. He said actually this formed part of the requirements for these loans. He added that there were also basic requirements that were also considered and they included issues of arability of the land, water availability among other things.
Khumalo noted that farmers often complained about issues of access to finance but government has created a lot of funding initiatives that were available for farmers. He stated that as a bank, they were administering a lot of these funds and they were always available to assist the farmers.
He added that awareness about these schemes was another key challenge they had noted and they were now reaching out through roadshows to educate farmers about the available opportunities.
He encouraged farmers to come forward to the bank to learn more about these initiatives that might help them and further help in improving the country’s economy at large. Horticultural crops comprise mainly fruits, vegetables, ornamental, aromatic, plantation and medicinal plants. These crops perform a major role in agriculture prosperity and the economy of the nation. Horticulture produce possessing vegetables and fruits is a crucial source of diet and nutrition.
NAMBoard has also implemented the horticulture input subsidy, where it contribute a non-refundable 40 per cent for farmers’ inputs and the farmer contributes only 60 per cent. This subsidy cushions the smallholder farmers against high farming input costs to ensure that the country does not depend on imports for major vegetables consumed locally. Following extensive stakeholder consultations, the following corrective actions have been implemented to date:
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