Around 450,000 small farmers, having less than 12.5 acres of land, will be given interest-free loans in Punjab
PESHAWAR: The Punjab government has decided to provide interest-free loans of Rs80 billion to small farmers in the province from October 2016 through its mobile-assisted farming initiative.
Around 450,000 small farmers, having less than 12.5 acres of land, will be given interest-free loans in the province under the Interest Free Credit and Smartphones to Farmers programme.
A finance input of Rs25,000 per acre for the Rabi cropping season and Rs40,000 per acre for the Kharif cropping season will be given to farmers through mobile phone-based transactions.
These loans will be utilised for buying farm inputs including seed, pesticides and fertiliser and will benefit farmers owning 1.8 million acres of land. Farmers are expected to save between 20 and 40 per cent in inputs costs.
I urge the provincial government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to create a similar interest-free loans scheme for the small farmers of the province and formulate policies for agricultural development to increase the per-acre yield.
Khan Faraz
Published in The Express Tribune, September 18th, 2016.
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