Farm credit target raised to Tk30,911cr for FY23
Several measures have been added to this year’s policy to facilitate access to agricultural credit to farmers and to address the contemporary challenges of ensuring public food security and nutrition
The Bangladesh Bank has announced a new policy with a target of disbursing Tk30,911 crore agricultural loan in fiscal 2022-23, which is 8.88% more than Tk28,391 crore targeted last year.
The Bangladesh Bank's Agricultural Credit Department announced the "Annual Agricultural and Rural Credit Policy and Programme with Targeted Credit Disbursement" yesterday.
According to the "Annual Agricultural and Rural Credit Policy and Programme with Targeted Credit Disbursement" issued by the Bangladesh Bank yesterday, agriculture is one of the driving forces of Bangladesh's economy. The importance of agriculture is being observed increasingly amid the pandemic and the recent global situation. Therefore, the Bangladesh Bank is always trying to help the agricultural sector through necessary financing.
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Besides, the policy aims at increasing the flow of agricultural credit in rural areas for alleviating poverty, alleviating hunger and ensuring good health – the first three of the goals set for realising sustainable development.
Considering the demand, the Bangladesh Bank has set a target of disbursing Tk11,758 crore agricultural and rural loans by the state-owned commercial and specialised banks and Tk19,153 crore by the private and foreign commercial banks.
In FY22, the banks disbursed Tk28,834 crore in agricultural and rural loans, which is 1.56% more than that was targeted for that fiscal year.
According to the Bangladesh Bank, 33.4 lakh people received agricultural and rural loans in the last fiscal year. Among them, 18 lakh were women who received Tk10,829 crore through the banks' own network and microfinance institution (MFI) linkage.
Around 25 lakh small and marginal farmers received around Tk20,182 crores loans from various banks. Moreover, 4,073 farmers in backward areas like char and haor received around Tk19.59 crore loan.
Several measures have been added to this year's policy and programme to facilitate access to agricultural credit to farmers and to address the contemporary challenges of ensuring public food security and nutrition by developing environment-friendly and sustainable agricultural systems.
The new policy has added rules and regulations for disbursing loans for farming duck and lobster, and cultivating chia seed, sugar beet, Vietnamese hybrid coconut, coffee and sweet corn, and seaweed.
A system of disbursing agricultural loans by banks has also been added to easily provide agricultural loans to farmers in groups.
