The Beninese government has just provided the National Fund for Agricultural Development (FNDA) with an envelope of 100 billion CFA francs, or nearly 181 million dollars, with a view to facilitating the access of agricultural producers to credits from banks. and decentralized financial systems, announced Wednesday afternoon in Cotonou, the Beninese Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Gaston Dossouhoui.

"With this envelope of 100 billion CFA francs, or nearly 181 million dollars, the government intends to help agricultural SMEs and SMIs, producers' cooperatives, economic interest groups and farmers to have access to sources of financing for the development of their activities", he declared during the information campaign on this source of agricultural financing, launched the same day in Cotonou.

According to a recent study carried out by the Beninese Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, the financing of the agricultural sector is provided mainly by micro-finance institutions, projects with agricultural credit lines and in a to a lesser extent by commercial banks.

"Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) are increasingly emerging, but do not yet occupy a comfortable position in the productive sector in Benin", reveals the same study, which notes that the great mass of family-type producers access

difficult to finance.

In addition, the study mentions that credits are mainly concentrated on the short term (80%), derisory on the medium term (less than 20%) and almost non-existent on the long term.

"Apart from the cotton sector where reimbursement mechanisms are more or less established, banks are reluctant to finance agricultural sectors because of the risks associated with the various hazards of the sector", she concludes. End