Five Wau women farmers receive tractors

FIVE women farmers in Wau, Morobe, have been given tractors to help in their work on the land and in expanding their businesses.
The support is an agriculture finance product developed by the Women’s Micro Bank Ltd, produce distributor NKW Fresh, and the Pacific private sector development initiative (PSDI).
“Farmers play a role in providing food,” bank chief executive Gunanidhi Das said.
“And it is evident that female agriculture producers play a role in their family’s economic welfare,” Das said
The five female farmers received the walk-behind tractors on Wednesday through an agriculture value chain finance (AVCF) pilot product.
Ten more tractors will be delivered next week.
The AVCF pilot product provides a solution to finance access issues for small-scale vegetable farmers.
The AVCF products use a farmer’s contractual supply arrangement with a larger company or distributor as collateral for a business loan, enabling the farmer to obtain capital, invest, and increase agriculture production.
“Under this model, farmers who were previously unbankable can raise funds to expand their businesses,” PSDI’s Jeremy Cleaver said.
NKW Fresh estimates that a farmer using the tractor can cultivate four times more land in the same amount of time. “Using machinery on our half-hectare farmer incubation blocks can generate between K45,000 and K75,000 annual income for a farmer,” NKW Fresh general manager David Stewart said.
“This is a significant boost for the farmers,” Stewart said.
PSDI is an Asian Development Bank technical assistance programme in partnership with the Australia and New Zealand governments.