MinAgricultura will double the budget to subsidize and compensate interest rates during 2024.
During its regional visits, the Agrarian Bank met yesterday with unions and leaders of the department of Risaralda at the XIX Regional Agricultural Forum, in order to establish a permanent and direct conversation that would make it possible to publicize the main lines of credit, as well as the disagreements of producers in this challenging time for Colombian agriculture.
In this way, the president of the Bank, Hernando Chica, expressed the benefits that Risaralda residents will have during the current year, emphasizing the new agreement of compensated rates to which they will be able to access, as a joint work with the Government of Risaralda: “It will benefit them by at least three percentage points, 300 basis points of reduction in interest rates, after the effort made by the National Government through the Finagro lines, substitute and rediscount lines, to be able to lower interest rates. interest”.
Planes
Last year was a positive period for Banco Agrario, where disbursements reached $11.3 billion, which benefited more than 435 thousand clients, for a growth of 22% compared to the previous period, and a total of $15, 7 billion so far in the current Government. Credits in Special Lines of Credit (LEC) totaled $1.3 trillion in the year and $1.5 trillion since August 2022.
Rural women and young people constitute one of the Bank’s main niches, which is why loans to these segments last year reached $1.2 trillion and $383 billion, respectively, with variations of 15% and 8% in their order. while general disbursements to small producers exceeded $3.6 billion in the period, growing 9%.
Coffee plantation renovation
“Minister Jhenifer Mojica provided important resources to subsidize the renovation of coffee plantations with a Rural Capitalization Incentive. We executed 100% of those resources until the end of last year. New items will be available for the year in which we are starting and we will continue supporting both Finagro and the Ministry and of course working as a team with the Association of Coffee Growers of Colombia, the different regional and sectional committees and also with the cooperatives to which we are going to reactivate the credit quotas for marketing.”
Producers
Among the associations that were present during this first regional forum of the year, the National Association of Peasant Users of Pereira, Dosquebradas, Apia, Quinchía, Belén de Umbría, Marseille stands out, as well as associations of blackberry, banana, fish farming, livestock, among others.
To access a loan at Banco Agrario
Those interested can go to any point in its extensive network made up of 793 traditional offices and 128 under the BAC Más Cerca format. Additionally, the “Request your Credit” button is enabled on the Bank’s website and other entities and organizations, where you can enter and make the request so that an advisor contacts the person as soon as possible.
The departmental government will invest $300 million pesos
The mayors of Risaralda highlighted this activity, precisely because of the latent needs that farmers, producers and entrepreneurs have to access resources at affordable rates. “We are convinced that Governor Juan Diego Patiño will have a lot of effort in these 4 years to work for the agricultural sector; So what is intended is to reactivate the rural economy,” concluded Ferney Castro Colorado, mayor of the municipality of Guatica.