Business Link Pacific (BLP), through the concessional loans program, has pumped in $771,000 towards the Sugar Cane Growers Fund (SCGF) for canegrowers on Viti Levu wanting to diversify into ginger farming.
The SCGF launched the online portal for ginger farming yesterday.
“The funding of $625,000 would be given as loans, $44,000 would go towards interest subsidy and marketing and $102,000 would be given as part of a grant,” said fund CEO Raj Sharma.
He said the farmers would be able to procure an initial loan of $5000, however, it could go up to $70,000 as well.
“The online portal launch today (yesterday) will allow interested cane farmers intending to venture into small scale ginger farming to get themselves registered until 31 March, 2022.”
Mr Sharma said once all applications were in, the team at SCGF would access all applications plus the Agriculture Ministry would further assist in identifying whether a particular farmer’s land is suitable for ginger farming.
“After all required boxes are ticked in, we will release the funds as the ginger planting season would start from July to August,” he said.
Mr Sharma acknowledged BLP for subsidising the actual interest rate of 6 per cent as growers would be charged only 5 per cent.
“Ginger is one of most high yielding income-generating agricultural commodities and we want our canegrowers to take advantage of it,” he said.
