Over its four months of existence, MIFA helped initiate a number of projects valued at CFA2bn, profiting 4,500 farmers
Wednesday, 07 November 2018 03:27 
(Togo First) - In four months, Togo’s agricultural financing incentive mechanism (MIFA) has provided technical support to nearly 4,500 farmers. This was disclosed by Noel Bataka, coordinator of the mechanism’s value chains, during an interview with local news website, Actu Togo.
According to the former strategic coordinator of PNIASA, since it was launched on June 25, 2018, MIFA helped provide around CFA500 million as financing support to farmers, and more monies should soon be disbursed for agricultural projects valued at about two billion CFA.
“Projects valued at about CFA2 billion are being put in place for these farmers and financial partners are working to provide needed funds. So far, half a billion has been provided to producers, out of targeted two billion,” the official told the local website.
Regarding concerns about producers not reimbursing the loans they are given, Bataka said the mechanism is based on a risk-sharing system that tackles the issue. “Farmers’ insolvency is often due to many causes and MIFA has solutions tackling all these issues. The first cause is failure to sell goods produced, he said. With MIFA however, producers and aggregators sign contracts and production is structured only based on these contracts,” he added.
“Deploying operating advisors near producers to tackle low productivity, reducing cost of loans which used to reach up to 20% (but now stands around 5%-7% with MIFA), and the assessment of projects by MIFA’s financial experts to produce viable business plans are some of MIFA’s solutions to make sure loans provided to producers are recovered,” Bataka declared.
Over the next three years he adds, “a million producers and players of agricultural value chains will be backed by the mechanism”.
Ten years from now, MIFA aims to get banks to invest, using their own funds, up to a billion euros, that is CFA650 billion, in agricultural value chains. Also, starting next year, the mechanism should expand to the coffee, cocoa, cotton, soybeans and cashew sectors.
Fiacre E. Kakpo
