The Zambian government, through the Development Bank of Zambia (DBZ), has released US$2.9mn to the Coffee Board of Zambia (CBZ) meant for long-term credit loans to small-scale coffee growers.

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    Agricultural Consultative Forum chairman Namukolo Mukutu who is a director of CBZ says that the money would ensure small-scale coffee growers had easy access to financing.

    Mukutu claims the move is to revamp the credit scheme facility that has collapsed in the past years.

    He says coffee production has high intensive labour and is expensive to run without adequate financial resources to the growers.

    He notes that the board would provide support for coffee production through input credit facility to enable small scale growers access high quality specialist extension services.

    Mukutu adds that the credit scheme will also ensure additional income leading to poverty alleviation among the small-scale farmers.

    He says the Coffee Growers Association, Agriflora and the Coffee Board of Zambia will continue supporting all the small scale coffee growers.

    Mukutu says last year the government allocated ZK2.2bn to support outgrower schemes while another ZK800mn was utilised under Agriflora coffee growers.

    A number of programmes would be carried out by the three companies to promote production of high quality coffee and ZK2bn would be set aside from this year’s budget for projects aimed at improving production.