US-based Winrock International Institute for Agricultural Development (Winrock) will aid the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) to look at ways and means of increasing credit availability to farmers, processors, and service providers and enhancing financial literacy in selected areas and crops.
In this regard, the two organizations signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The initial focus will be on four non-major crops namely dates, banana, tomato, and red chili.
Winrock International is a recognized leader in US and international development, providing solutions to some of the world’s most complex social, agricultural, and environmental challenges. It is a non-profit organization that implements a portfolio of more than 140 agriculture, environmental, and social development projects in over 46 countries.
It is being represented via its Pakistan office through the Pakistan Agriculture Development Project (PAD) and is undertaking tasks on value chain development in the four crops in 12 districts (6 each in Sindh and Punjab).
NBP and Winrock will collaborate to bring together their respective experiences and expertise to facilitate farmers and related value chain partners to promote better standards for farming and processing. Credit plays a vital role in enabling the adoption of best practices for improving crop productivity, reducing losses, value addition and consequently enhancing profitability.
NBP will collaborate with Winrock to enable credit flow to farmers and agribusinesses thereby enabling the adoption of modern inputs and technologies in the farm-to-fork value chain for the four crops. The effort is expected to result in improved crop productivity, reduced post-harvest losses, and consequently increased incomes. Similarly, it will facilitate processors and other potential value chain partners i.e. Agri related businesses to acquire new or scale-up existing infrastructure/technology and improve business profitability.
The expected outcome of the collaboration between NBP and Winrock is to create a win-win situation for all stakeholders and contribute to growth in Pakistan’s economy.
