Credit Unions low-interest loans offer for farmers

Ireland's credit unions will launch a new low-interest secured agri loan from June 2023 as part of the Cultivate initiative.

The 'Cultivate Secure' package will offer secured loans of up to €300,000 on a term of up to 30 years, with the last payment to be made before the applicant reaches the age of 70.

It will be introduced in a number of credit unions initially and will be on offer to farmers seeking funding for capital investment, inheritance bills and land purchase.

Cultivate Secure will have a standardised interest rate of 5.25% and APR of 5.49% across the credit union network.

Almost 50 credit unions across 150 outlets currently provide short and mediumterm loans under Cultivate to farmers across the country.

The existing unsecured loan comes with 6.75% APR, max loan of €75,000, over a maximum term of seven years.

Cultivate Chair Joe Healy said the unsecured offering has been "a rip-roaring success”, and pointed to new appetite amongst farmers for a larger scale, secured offering.

"We have almost €100m out to farmers on loan through Cultivate at this stage and over 98% full payment on time, and the others you're talking about one to 10 weeks late. That's not bad now on €100m,” Mr Healy told the Farming Independent.

"Over the years, farmers, when they thought about

“ is framework should be designed in a way to incentivise businesses, including those in agriculture, forestry and industry, to capture and store carbon by providing certi cates that represent high-quality carbon removal and sequestration,” said Mr Kelly.

Certi cates of removals could be sold, creating new income opportunities for in- dustries and for our farmers. is of course will require the right regulatory framework and incentives to implement,” the Ireland South MEP said.

“ ere is huge potential for carbon farming in Ireland, which can play a big role in the sector’s decarbonisation while o ering new income opportunities for farmers.

Mr Kelly has been actively