Rambharat: ADB has provisions for flood-stricken farmers

Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat says the Agricultural Development Bank has provisions in place to assist farmers in times of flood.

He said weather-related factors are taken into consideration by the bank, as this would affect loan payments, and this approach had been used after the passage of Tropical Storm Bret last year, "and then the bad weather in October and we using it again this time around."

“As soon as we have a problem with the weather," he explained, "the ADB goes through its database, identifies the farmers who are likely affected, contact the farmers and starts to work on rescheduling payments.

The ADB, he said, "would work with each farmer based on their individual loan portfolio and they would give them time to recover. We know it would normally take a few months."

He said the ADB would be "very accommodating" to farmers "because they would know what has happened.”

Asked about flood assistance from the ministry, he said it had paid out $9.7 million to some 6,500 farmers last year, and farmers were well acquainted with the system.

Rambharat said he is trying to get the ministry to move faster so farmers can get support to restart their farms.