Design unique credit facility for farmers – MP

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Nsawam Adoagyiri, Frank Annor Dompreh has urged government to consider developing a unique credit system that will uniquely meet the needs of farmers across the country.

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP made the appeal in an interview with BUSINESS GUIDE recently at Doboro in the Eastern Region.

According to him, the current credit regimes in the country are not favorable for the advancement of the agricultural sector due to the high interest rates.

“We need to develop a credit facility which is tailored towards the needs of farmers,” he said.

“It shouldn’t be on wholesale, the normal credit with a huge interest rate. Let’s design a unique credit facility for farmers, let’s watch interest rates, let’s give good credit facility to farmers.”

He proposed a 15 percent interest rate on loans contracted by farmers.

He also called for the decentralization of agricultural projects across the country to enable every farmer realize the benefits of such projects.

Mr. Annor Dompreh stated that the Export Development and Investment Fund (EDIF) should be decentralized in the country.

This, he noted, would enable every farmer across Ghana to get easy access to the Fund for export and investment.

“All the projects exist in Accra. We need to decentralize in the country,” he said.

“EDIF should be decentralized and other facilities for farmers need to be decentralized,” he stressed.

“And again, there are a number of projects that are just being sent to the north. There is a certain mindset that poverty is in the north, yes, but we need to push things to the southern part of our country.”

He said that these interventions would go a long way to make the sector lucrative for farmers and attract new investors and youth into farming.