By Mary Sichali

Karonga, October 14, Mana: The National Economic Empowermemt Fund (NEEF) has said it aims to disburse MK70 billion as Farm Input Loans (FIL) targeting 70,000 farmers national wide.

Speaking on Monday in Karonga during a NEEF engagememt meeting with Karonga Agriculture Development Division (ADD) officers, Wakisa Mwelefe Kalolokesha, Head of Operations at NEEF said they are working with small holder farmers to enable them to embrace farming as business.

“We want to give them FILs, an opportunity that will elevate them from subsistence farming where the focus was on Affordable Input Program (AIP) to commercial farming,” said Kalolokesha.

He added that the intervention will aid the achievement of a minimum national food security by adding an approximate of 1.4 Million Metric Tonnes to the national production, which represents 39 percent contribution.

“NEEF Intends to offer FILs to categories of farmers’ groupings of (five -ten people) or individuals who own not less than five acres with a minimum loan of MK1 million and a maximum of MK250 million to those who own mega farms to achieve the targets of our intervention,” said Kalolokesha.

He further said that they have partnered with Cooperative Insurance Company (CIC) and the Ministry of Agriculture to ensure effective implementation of the program.

On his part, Jimmy Nkhata, Customer Executive Officer for CIC said they are working hand in hand with NEEF to help farmers become aware on the use of loan insurance policies.

“We have partnered with stakeholders to sensitize farmers to enhance their understanding of collateral insurance to mitigate controllable risk factors that may lead to deliberate defaulting,” Nkhata said.

Davie Makavalo, Senior Agribusiness Officer for Karonga ADD said they are providing technical expertise to NEEF where their core duty is to measure and approve land size and provide agricultural production estimates to match with NEEF’s expectation.

“We will also collect data to verify how the farmers are progressing and register farmers according to the Extension Planning Area (EPA). This will assist NEEF to have control of every loan applicant,” said Makavalo.

The disbursement process of the loans for 2024-2025 is currently in progress and it is expected to end in December,2024.