Tanzania: Bank Begins to Implement Receipt Scheme

Handeni — The National Microfinance Bank (NMB PLC) has begun to implement a Warehouse Receipt Finance Scheme (WHRF) for maize farmers in Handeni District, Tanga Region. The NMB Handeni Branch Customer Services manager, Mr Charles Ng'osha, said here that the over eight Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Societies were scheduled to open bank accounts with the bank in readiness for the commencement of the scheme in warehouses that have thoroughly been studied by experts from the bank's headquarters in Dar es Salaam.

Ng'osha was presenting a paper at a one-day meeting of the Sunflower Value Chain Platform chaired by its chairman, Captain Seif Mpembenwe (rtd), who is also the district commissioner.

Training for members of cooperatives that have been scheduled to start the scheme has already been conducted through the NMB Foundation for Agricultural Development (NFAD), a fund which was established with the support of Rabo Bank of the Netherlands in 2009 to build and strengthen sustainable cooperative societies to enable members to increase income from their produce.
Ng'osha said the WHRF is part of plans of the largest bank in Tanzania to invest in agriculture and the scheme is already operating for such crops as coffee, cotton, paddy and cashew nuts.
The scheme, he said, which offers an opportunity for farmers to get cash as they hand over their produce at the warehouse would liberate farmers who have been at the mercy of middlemen and traders.