THE board of the Fiji Development Bank is looking at more innovative land documentation procedures to enable farmers to get loans more easily.
Responding to farmers concerns in the North about the difficulties they faced because of strict requirements for farmers to have proper leases, the bank’s board chairman Robert Gordon Lyon said they were keen to look at options to address the concerns.
Mr Lyon said land tenure had always been a problem in Fiji for a long time adding that all stakeholders were looking at options to address the issue.
“The Asian Development Bank has been working on projects to make it easier for people who don’t have solid tenure to access capital,” he said.
“We do a lot of lending to farmers where commercial banks don’t.
“We are the only bank that gets down to the smaller farmers and we are always keen to see what we can do to assist them.”
Mr Lyon said the issue was raised during their talk with farmers adding that they would look into the concerns raised.
“Farmers have also relayed to us their elation following the reduced loan interest rates that were introduced recently by the bank,” he said.
“It is also good to see more farmers in the North now investing in harvesters which will increase productivity and assist farmers to be competitive.”
This article first appeared in The Fiji Times on August 25, 2016.