Farm loan funding is doubled by Creed

A DOUBLING of the funding for farm loans under the Future Growth Loan Scheme has been welcomed by the IFA – but they are seeking greater accessibility to the funding for smaller farmers.

Last week, Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed, confirmed a doubling of the funding – from €60 million to €120m – in the loan scheme administered by the European Investment Fund (EIF) and the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI).

The loans – for terms of eight to 10 years – are unsecured up to €500,000 with a maximum loan interest rate of 4.5% for loans under €250,000: the minimum loan amount for farmers is €50,000.

Galway IFA Farm Business Representative, Rose Mary McDonagh, told the Farming Tribune that while the availability of loan capital for farmers was to be welcomed in general, the scheme needed to be more accessible.

“The initial announcement about this scheme goes back to well over a year ago, but it’s only in the last month or so that we’ve had the first of the banks (Bank of Ireland) in a position to offer this money to farmers.

“There were a lot of restrictions also being applied to the loans while we would certainly like to see the minimum figure of €50,000 reduced by about half, something that would be tailored to suit the needs of smaller farmers,” said Rose Mary McDonagh.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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