FNB has launched a dedicated funding initiative aimed at helping women-owned and women-led agricultural businesses lower financing costs and invest in their next stage of growth.
The initiative comes as discussions at last week’s Nampo Cape highlighted the barriers women face when trying to grow their agricultural businesses, from access to finance and markets to the capital needed to expand production and processing.
Zanele Mabelane, product portfolio head of agriculture at FNB Commercial, says women are already active across the agricultural value chain, including primary production, processing and input supply, but many still struggle to access finance suited to their businesses.
“Women don’t only need opportunities to enter agriculture; they need the ability to build businesses that can grow, invest and compete sustainably,” Mabelane says.
FNB’s Women in Agriculture Funding initiative provides qualifying women-owned and women-led businesses with access to a dedicated pool of funding until the available allocation is exhausted.
The funding is intended to help businesses reduce their financing costs while investing in areas such as expanding production, increasing processing capacity, developing value-added opportunities and strengthening their participation in agricultural supply chains.
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Making growth more affordable
Mabelane says the cost and structure of finance can have a significant impact on an agricultural business’s ability to grow.
“Agriculture is capital intensive, and the timing and structure of finance can have a significant impact on a business’s ability to expand,” she says.
“By providing more affordable longer-term funding, we want to give qualifying women-owned and women-led businesses more room to invest in the assets, infrastructure and opportunities that can improve their competitiveness.”
The initiative forms part of FNB’s broader focus on agricultural transformation and supporting emerging businesses to become stronger commercial participants in the sector.
Mabelane says sustainable transformation ultimately depends on businesses becoming commercially viable rather than remaining dependent on short-term support.
“Transformation becomes sustainable when businesses are able to stand on strong commercial foundations,” she says. “Our role is to understand what those businesses need to grow and, where we can, structure our support in a way that helps them build scale, create employment and participate more meaningfully across the agricultural value chain.”
Bringing emerging farmers into the conversation
At Nampo Cape, which concluded on Saturday, FNB brought emerging farmers into the conversation through a Future Farmers Roundtable focused on the realities of building sustainable agricultural enterprises.
The discussion explored the challenges and opportunities facing farmers as they work towards greater commercial participation, including the support needed to build viable businesses.
For Mabelane, access to finance is only one part of creating a more inclusive agricultural economy. The bigger goal, she says, is to help agricultural businesses build the capacity and scale needed to become more competitive, create jobs and play a stronger role across the value chain.
- Qualifying existing FNB clients can contact their FNB Business Banker for more information about the Women in Agriculture Funding initiative.
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