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AFC Holdings, the one-stop shop for development finance, commercial banking, insurance, and leasing with a special focus on agriculture development is committed to supporting the 2022/23 summer cropping season.
Speaking to Spiked Online Media today during the ongoing Zimbabwe Agricultural Show (ZAS) in Harare today, Mrs. Priscilla Munyeza, the Managing Director at the AFC Land and Development Bank of Zimbabwe, a subsidiary of AFC Holdings invited farmers to approach the bank to be provided with agricultural loans for working capital and capital expenditure.
“The bank has funds for farmers to purchase inputs facilities to cover seed, fertilizers, and chemicals. As the AFC Land and Development Bank of Zimbabwe, we also provide advisory services to our farmers.
” As we are approaching the summer cropping season, we are projecting to raise over ZWL$70 billion to make sure that we support the 65,000ha summer cropping target, primarily targeting maize and soya beans. The support is accessible through working capital and inputs facilities,” Mrs. Munyeza said.
AFC Leasing is ready to support the leasing requirements in terms of land preparation, harvesting, and spraying.
Combine Harvester Distribution by Province and Area Harvested:
With support from AFC Holdings, the winter harvesting period is currently in process and about 8000ha have been harvested so far with the majority having been harvested in Mashonaland West, Central, and Mashonaland East.
“We have combine harvesters, tractors, disc harrows, boom sprayers, and planters for use from land preparation up to harvest. The leasing company has established 22 Cluster centers across the country where all equipment can be accessed by the farmers. The cluster centers are supposed to ensure that farmers easily access farming equipment.
“We offer very affordable hiring terms! You will appreciate that we are a one-stop shop and where farmers do not have the capacity to pay upfront, we can also link them with our Land and Development Bank to access financing for mechanization services. We have also been very innovative around our payment terms and we can also allow a farmer to do barter trade with us, where we allow them to exchange crops as a form of payment. We then partner with grain banks to store this grain and we give service to the farmer. We have formed cluster centers across the country at farming hotspots to ensure that when farmers request tractors they are within reach,” she added.
AFC Holdings pledged to continue to leverage its group synergies to drive its support to Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector.
“We have now been strategically positioned as a one-stop shop for our farmers who can now access their agricultural financing, banking, agricultural equipment, and insurance under one roof. We would like to confirm our ability and preparedness to take farmers through the whole farming process, from land preparation to harvesting, with banking and insurance supporting this,” said Ms. Caroline Mozhendi, the AFC Holdings Group Executive, Strategy Marketing and Communications.