IFIC Bank ties farm credit to quality and traceability to lift vegetable exports

Bangladesh grows more than 15 million tonnes of vegetables a year, a trade involving more than 16 million farmers, yet less than 0.3 percent reaches international markets. To narrow the gap, the private IFIC Bank is building a financing model in which farmers' production capacity, product quality, compliance with international standards and export readiness become part of the loan assessment, Samakal reports.

The bank's partner is Swisscontact. The model will sit within the SAFE-BD project, which works on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) compliance and export capacity in the vegetable sector. The aim is to make farmers, agro-based small and medium enterprises and exporters more competitive in the European Union, the UK, the Middle East and Asia.

Seasonal production, fragmented supply chains and dependence on middlemen keep many farmers from meeting conventional loan conditions. Alongside collateral and financial records, the proposed model will weigh production conditions, links to supply chains, the ability to assure quality and traceability, bringing the whole value chain from farm to export under one financing framework.

Work is planned first in farm clusters in Jessore and Narsingdi. Farmers will be trained in good agricultural practice, climate-resilient farming, post-harvest handling and safe pesticide use; exporters will get help with SPS standards, HACCP, certification, export documents and traceability. Trained farmers and exporters will be linked directly to the bank's agriculture and CMSME units, and 500 farmers and entrepreneurs are to be trained in financial literacy and digital banking.

IFIC Bank chairman and independent director Md Mehmud Hossain said the goal is not just more farm lending but a finance-backed export system that connects Bangladesh's farmers and processors to global buyers through better standards, stronger supply chains and suitable financial products. Swisscontact will help connect exporters with buyers in Europe and the UK.

Photo: NahidSultan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Source: Samakal