Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Financing for Indigenous Farming

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

TEGUCIGALPA, Jul 14 2007 (IPS) - From August and for the next five years, the Honduran government will grant loans totaling 15 million dollars to 45,000 indigenous families in the western part of the country in an effort to promote sustainable development projects. The National Rural Banking Plan will provide “seed” capital to groups of five or more people to grow basic grains, vegetables and organic coffee, among other crops, Agricultural Minister Héctor Hernández told Tierramérica.

“With an investment of 15 million dollars we are financing around 3,000 rural banks,” he said.

The aim is to promote farming, self-sustaining production and environmental protection in the country's impoverished and mainly indigenous areas. The plan has the backing of the United Nations Development Program.

The rural banks began more than a decade ago, driven by the peasant farmers themselves and non-governmental organizations, as an alternative for those who could not obtain loans from the commercial banks.