Promoting access to credit for agricultural and productive activities in Campeche

• The Secretariat of Agricultural Development and the BioPaSOS project organized the Agricultural Green Credit Fair, with the participation of producers, financial agents and public and private companies..

September 28, 2022. With the intention of opening a space for dialogue between agricultural producers, financial agents and public and private companies to publicize and promote their strategies, programs and financial products that motivate the development of sustainable agricultural production systems in Campeche, the Green Agricultural Credit Fair was held on September 23 in the city of Escarcega.

This event was jointly organized by the Secretariat of Agricultural Development (SDA, its Spanish acronym) and the Biodiversity and Sustainable Agro-forestry and Livestock Landscapes project, known as BioPaSOS, which is implemented by CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center).

Six financial institutions participated in the fair: Fideicomisos Instituidos en Relación con la Agricultura (FIRA-Banco de México), Financiera Nacional de Desarrollo (FND,its Spanish acronym), Financiera de la Unión Regional Ganadera del estado de Campeche (Financiera UGRC), BANCAMPECHE, Caja Popular Mexicana, Microfinanciera Tucash, as well as the company Hispatec México. The latter presented an app for the registration and control of activities on cattle ranches, while Lidec SC presented the new tax regime for agricultural activities and its implications for small and medium-sized producers.

More than 200 people took part in the fair, 65% of whom were men and 35% women, from more than 30 communities in the municipalities of Palizada, Candelaria, Escárcega, Calakmul, Champotón and Campeche.

According to Edwin Pérez, local coordinator of the BioPaSOS project in Campeche, this event was particularly important to bring small and medium-sized producers closer to the different financial mechanisms existing in the state, so that agents can offer their financial products. "The ultimate goal is for producers to have relevant information to access soft loans aimed at sustainable production," said Perez.

José Alfonso Junco, technical secretary of the SDA, mentioned that the governor, Layda Elena Sansores, and the secretary, Ramón Gabriel Ochoa, have entrusted them with the task of carrying out this type of actions to inform producers so that they can make better decisions in the event that they consider acquiring a loan to promote their productive activities.

Project BioPaSOS is implemented with the support of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), in coordination with the National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO, its Spanish acronym) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRICULTURA), with funding from the International Climate Initiative (IKI) and in alliance with multiple local partners in their territories of intervention.