Saudi dates, Vietnamese coconuts, coffee farmers to get loan facilities

The farmers, who cultivate Saudi dates, Vietnamese coconuts, sweet corn and coffee, are now eligible for getting loans under the Agricultural and Rural Credit Policy and Program.

To this effect, Bangladesh Bank has already directed all the scheduled banks to extend such loan facilities to those farmers across the country immediately.

The central bank issued a circular on Tuesday in this regard.

However these four items will be the addition of 124 crops, fruits etc previously listed by Agricultural & Rural Credit Policy and Program as eligible for getting such loan facilities.

Saudi dates farmers will now be able to get a loan of Tk 10,05,400 against each acre land while farmers for cultivating Vietnamese coconut will get Tk 4,29,000, for sweet corn farming Tk 66,000 and coffee farmers will get a loan of Tk 3,80,000 against each acre land.

However, a single farmer will get a maximum loan for five acres of land.

A farmer with 0.50 bigha of land will also be eligible for such loan facilities.

The loan will be disbursed to sweet corn farmers in between 15 November to 15 December while others can get loans round the year and the farmers have to pay back the loan amount soon after their harvesting.