Faced with the negative effects that the winter season has caused in the rural sector, the Colombian Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Cecilia López Montaño, announced short and medium-term measures, which have to do with ensuring financial resources so that producers can advance planting in the first months of next year and reduce the prices of agricultural inputs.
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"We are opening the doors, so that the planting, which begins in February, March and April, has the necessary financing, while we are looking at how to facilitate credit for those who have not been able to pay due to winter," she said.
On the other hand, Minister Cecilia López indicated that a policy is being carried out to reduce the cost of inputs, which in the short term consists of subsidizing 20% of the purchases made by small producers of these elements.
In this sense, the official reiterated the call to the peasants to use this support from the Government: “we have a 20% subsidy for 120,000 small peasants, with which we reduce 20% of the purchases of small peasant inputs. All the processes that must be followed to benefit are already underway. With this, lower the cost of inputs.
She also announced that next year a great effort will be made to finance the production of bio-inputs in Colombia, "it is a way to lower costs, but at the same time to generate the possibility of not submitting to fluctuations in international prices,” she stated.
For this purpose, a credit will be used, which according to the minister, is being processed with the World Bank (WB), basically to promote the production of bio-inputs in El País.
Finally, she recalled that the producers affected by the winter wave can go to the offices of Banco Agrario to access the benefits and financial relief provided to mitigate the impact on their activities: "The actions range from reducing loan costs, extending credit or reduction of interest costs”, said the head of the agricultural portfolio. ■