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The Sustainable Agricultural Financing Facility (SAFF) coordinator, Obby Mainza, has urged commercial banks to disburse approved funds to farmers under the scheme.
Mainza said the commercial banks should not delay to disburse the funds because doing so will disadvantage farmers to carry out agricultural activities.
“Government is eager to see to it that all farmers under the facility are empowered for them to smoothly undertake farming activities,” he said in a statement on Sunday.
The government, Mainze noted, had allocated enough funds to support farmers under the scheme and the banks need to ensure that all eligible farmers get the funds on time.
Read more: Govt expands agriculture financing facility to boost food security
He said farmers needed to practice mechanisation farming to increase production output and this can only be done when the funds are made available to farmers.
He, however, said the government would increase funding under this scheme from K275 million to a larger amount when it was satisfied with the way the commercial banks would implement the first phase.
“Government wants to see to it that the scheme is successful because this is critical to guarantee food security for the country,” Mainza added.
He said the country had faced food insecurity because of the drought but now that this year’s farming season is promising necessary resources need to be provided to farmers for them to increase production.
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