State-owned money-lending institution, National Economic Empowerment Fund (NEEF) says a total of 16,752 farmers have benefitted from a loan facility called Micro-Irrigation loan in the last 2 months.
NEEF says the farmers have received a combined figure of K8 billion in farm equipment and inputs from the 14 April to the 11 June 2025.
NEEF Chief Executive Officer, Humphrey Mdyetseni has told ProjectM in an interview that the report is in line with the wishes of the institution which is pushing for more investment in winter farming.
Mdyetseni said the money lending institution will soon disburse more loans under the irrigation loan facility.
“As NEEF, we are very happy that under the Micro-Irrigation loan scheme, a lot of small-scale farmers are showing interest to venture in winter-farming, a development we believe will help the country avert the threat of hunger,” he said.
Mdyetseni said figures are indicating that a total of 34,066 acres of land will be cultivated through irrigation this season.
“These are acres of irrigation land that we have assessed as NEEF and if all goes well, a lot of farmers will smile all the to the bank in the next few months,” said Mdyetseni.
He said 287 farmer groups comprising 50-100 members have so far benefited from the loan facility.
“We are expecting this number to rise as more applications are being processed,” he added.
One of the beneficiaries, Mulanje based, Kambenje Irrigation Scheme Farmers through its representative, Chifundo Macheso has commended NEEF for coming up with the initiative, saying it has presented an opportunity for the group to boost its agricultural output.
“Our scheme was given an agricultural input loan in form of fertiliser, seeds and pesticides, a loan which we believe will boost our output this year,” said Macheso.
