Caribbean Farmers to review finance risks in agriculture
Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) have determined that there must partnership amongst farmers, technical officers, financiers to help mitigate risks in agriculture and improve efficiency.
Senator Norman W Grant, President, Caribbean Farmers Network (CaFAN) said that the organization together with its partners will be reviewing its risks management for the region. This following the capacity building session on ‘Risk Management tools for Agricultural finance’ at the Fin4ag 2014 conference in Nairobi.
Senator Grant outlined that the following were identified as some of the concerns of farmers in the ACP at the session:
- Partnerships and inclusiveness
- Inefficiencies or competencies of farmers
- Knowledge management in the sector
- Lack of access to financing
- Poor rural Infrastructure
- High interest rate on agricultural loan.
- Attitude of farmers to look at low cost models
- Markets for farmers produce
- Challenges in value chain financing
- Climate change
- Diseases
- Insurance
At the conference, African farmers have called on its central banks to review its regulations and for governments to review policies to look at the high rate of interest offered to agricultural sector by banking institutions. Senator Grant called for closer collaboration between the African Farmers Organizations and Unions with the Caribbean Farmers Organizations and outlined that with the assistance of CTA, CAFAN will be seeking to advance the collaboration between the farmers of the two regions.
The Fin4ag 2014 brought together over 700 delegates from more than 80 countries from the ACP-EU countries to discuss topics on the theme , ’Revolutionizing finance for agri-value chain’ between 14 and 18 July, 2014. The Caribbean delegation comprise 22 persons from 12 countries in the Caribbean including two youths participating in ICT activities.
About the Fin4ag 2014 conference:
The fin4ag brings together the critical actors for building a modern and high performing agricultural financing system. The conference will help
decision-makers, from both public and private sectors to break through the walls that so often prevent innovation, in this case the smallholder
inclusive agricultural finance. conceptualized based on the increased need to secure supply of food commodities that fast-growing and increasingly
competitive markets require, proper and more access to finance is needed to drive agricultural financing system, and transformation in the ACP countries.
