Farmers urged to embrace loans  

Crop and livestock farmers in Mbarara District and the neighbouring areas have been tipped on utilising and making use of the available financial institutions by acquiring loans to better their farming practices and activities.

According to microfinance institutional managers across Africa, it is important for farmers to embrace use of microfinance loans to grow their farming practices.

Speaking at the Agro-Finance international engagement with farmers in Mbarara City, the chief executive officer of Ebo Sacco Mr Joseph Kazoba said Saccos have bridged a gap of funding small holder farmers which was left by mainstream commercial banks noting that farmers can easily get loans from Saccos to improve themselves.

“Main stream commercial banks never used to actually fund agriculture but when we came, we intervened and filled that gap, our small holder farmers are now able to access financial services through Saccos,” Mr Kazoba said.

Challenges 
Mr Kazoba added that as they try to grow farmers, there are a number of challenges faced along the way, he stated challenges of loan defaulters and multi borrowing by some of the farmers.   “Like any other business, we face challenges of defaulting but we use other means to recover,” he said.

Mr Elias Byaruhanga the head of credit at Ebo Sacco said in the engagement of visiting farms together with Belgian BRS, they are intending at improving and growing farmers by giving them loans to boost their farm activities.

“This is agro finance workshop is majorly looking at improving by serving agriculturalists giving them loans that can help them in improving their farms and improving their returns, basically communities will benefit because whatever knowledge that we have got from here will be transferred directly to farmers. This majorly focuses on the customers who pick loans from us, we have even visited different farming communities sharing knowledge and how to improve them,” Mr Byaruhanga said.

Byaruhanga noted that farmers face a number of challenges including harsh climatic conditions giving them hope that as financial helpers they will give irrigation materials to those farmers.

“Our famers have challenges and this is what we are trying to address that is why the workshop is customer centric, we want to look at the challenges of customers (farmers), we already know some of the challenges including the prices for their produce, market for their produces, cheap funds, and climatic harsh conditions. That’s why we are coming with some of the products such as insurance and irrigation at Ebo. That’s why we have visited clients, we discussed the challenges facing our farmers and we provide solutions to them,” he said.

Farmers’ benefits  
Mr Johan Tytega Belgian a retired banker at BRS says rural microfinances have helped farmers to grow. He believes once farmers embrace use of rural microfinance institutions they can grow and develop themselves.

“We have clear focus as BRS, we have principle cooperative companies, microfinance institutions who are active in rural areas and have helped farmers and rural outlook, and we have partnered with Ebo Sacco to do this, what we have seen is its cost, figures, the risk management then we discuss possible items where we can work together. We are ensuring that we help Ebo to play its role at the reservoir farms and the rural entrepreneurs, we help them to be better organised on different spacemen, the better it comes to play its role as reservoir farmers, we are looking at helping it manage its own risks,” he said.

Mr Robert Mugisha said they are intending at improving services to the small holder farmer by addressing issues of climate change and blending agriculture financing and green financing.

“We want to see improved services to the smallholder farmers, how do they benefit especially on the emerging of climate change as a big challenge, there is need to blend between agriculture financing and green financing, we are looking at coming with solutions, how we can improve agri-financing,” Mr Mugisha said.

New skills 
Mr Bart Spellman, BRS administrator said it’s crucial for farmers to learn new farming skills especially in the changed era of modern farming.

“We have managers from microfinance institutions from different countries such as Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Kenya among others, it is very interesting to see how the center is here,” he said.

The Mbarara City mayor Mr commended Saccos and other financial institutions for having moved a milestone in helping the government fight poverty through giving loans to small holder farmers.

Loan boost
 Mr Elias Byaruhanga the head of credit at Ebo Sacco said in the engagement of visiting farms together with Belgian BRS, they are intending at improving and growing farmers by giving them loans to boost their farm activities.