Minister concerned over delays in farm credits
Minister concerned over delays in farm credits
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Agriculture Sjarifudin Baharsjah
expressed concern over the delay of loan distribution to farmers,
saying that it had caused them serious disadvantages.
Speaking to reporters late last week, Sjarifudin said that
farmers could have actually obtained loans specially allocated
for them before the last planting season, but they failed to do
so because Bank Rakyat Indonesia and Bank Pembangunan Daerah --
two banks appointed by the government to manage the loans -- were
too slow in giving information on the simplified procedures to
obtain the credits.
"The delay has caused financial difficulties for farmers
because they had to buy fertilizers and farming equipment at
higher prices, with their own money," he said.
Farming credits, locally called KUT, were first introduced in
1985 by the state-owned Bank Rakyat Indonesia. The facility is
aimed at strengthening rice and secondary crop cultivation and to
improve farmers' welfare.
Sjarifudin said that the ministry had decided to simplify the
procedures needed to obtain the loans by cutting back a large
amount of red tape. From the present 11 steps, farmers now are
only required to take three steps before obtaining the loans.
He said that for the 1994 planting season (October 1994-March
1995), the banks provided Rp 34.6 billion (US$15.5 million) in
KUT loans, of which Rp 831 million or 2.4 percent had been
repaid.
The accumulative amount of KUT credits channeled between 1985
and 1995 has reached Rp 567 billion, 79.7 percent of which has
been repaid.
Although farmers could not use the loan during the previous
planting season, Sjarifudin was optimistic that they could use it
for the upcoming planting season in October.
He noted that the productivity of rice crops had increased
lately, not only because there was an expansion of the harvested
areas but also because farmers used larger and effective amounts
of fertilizer.
The minister said that the last harvest season resulted in
more crops than the previous season. This could be seen from the
increase of planted areas which reached more than 863,584
hectares this planting season, indicating a 50.5 percent increase
over last year's planting season of 573,844 hectares.
He said that to accelerate the distribution of information on
the KUT loans, field supervisors would receive an incentive worth
one percent of the loans for farmers.(pwn)