Parent Department: Department of Agriculture and co-operation, Government of India.

SFAC: Small farmers agri-business consortium, is a society promoted by the parent department.

Aim: Empowering the farmers by promoting Agri-business through institutional and private sector investments and for value added processing and marketing linkages.

Objectives: providing financial support in the form of interest free loan provided by SFAC in association with lending institutions.

List of lending institutions: SFAC in association with Nationalized banks, SBI and its subsidiaries, IDBI, SIDBI, NABARD, Exim bank, RRBs, and State financial corporations.

Eligibility:

• Individuals
• Farmers
• Farmer producer Organizations (FPO)
• Partnership/Proprietary firms
• Self-help groups
• Agripreneurs
• Units in Agri-Export zones
• Agriculture Graduate students or Associations

Financial assistance strategy:

Documents required:

1. Promoters request letter to the Managing director, SFAC on original letter head of the firm
2. Banks approval with sanctioning authority signature
3. Implementation schedule confirmed by the bank
4. Up to date account statement for term loan and cash credit (if sanctioned)

Qualifying Projects:

• The project should be in agriculture or allied sector (including poultry and dairy projects)
• The project should provide an assured market to farmer/produce groups
• The project should encourage farmers to diversify into high value crops
• The project should be accepted by the lending institutions for grant of term loan.