TADB facilitates Sh173.49 billion through guarantee scheme

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania Agriculture Development Bank (TADB) has guaranteed financing of Sh173.49 billion to agriculture in five years through its smallholder guarantee scheme, the bank revealed yesterday.

The state-owned bank provides up to 50 percent guarantee to partner banks that provide agriculture loans, through the arrangement known as Smallholder Farmers Credit Guarantee Scheme (SCGS).

In a quarterly financial statement published in a newspaper yesterday, the bank revealed that some 13,239 smallholder farmers benefited from the initiative from 2018 to the end of December 2022.

The scheme is part of the bank’s strategic mandate to enhance smallholder farmers’ access to loans at low interest rates and other affordable conditions.

“The scheme aims at transforming smallholder farmers from subsistence farming to commercial farming by encouraging the adaptation of modern technology and/or techniques, which ultimately create employment and promote food security,” TADB said in a previous statement.

The scheme is funded by the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) through Marketing Infrastructure, Value Addition, and Rural Finance Support Programme (MIVARF) that is implemented under the Prime Minister’s Office.

This supports the government’s pledge to ensure small-scale farmers and agro-SMEs access affordable financial support and boost agriculture financing.

Through other initiatives, the bank has also endorsed 232 agriculture projects, facilitating the implementation of 42 agriculture processing industries.

Overall, the bank also had a good year, recording a one percent increase in its cumulative profit to Sh11 billion by the end of last year, from Sh10.9 billion in 2021.