The Regional Investment Corporation (RIC) welcomes the Australian Government's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) announcement that its AgriStarter Loan eligibility will be updated from 1 April 2022 to include farmers share farming land or leasing, and the RIC's existing loan funding will be extended a further 3 years to 2025-26.
RIC Chief Executive Officer Bruce King said both MYEFO outcomes are positive for the RIC with the opportunity to support more new farmers in their transition farm ownership and more certainty about the RIC's future provided with the loan funding extension.
"The new AgriStarter Loan eligibility will help us to support more new farmers currently share farming land or leasing, two common entry paths to farm ownership," said Mr King.
"The RIC will be looking at how these changes apply to our current eligibility and criteria in early 2022 before the updated AgriStarter Loan guidelines are available from 1 April 2022.
"The reallocation of the existing RIC loan funding for a further three years will also support the long-term planning and fluctuating seasonal nature in agriculture, providing farmers and farming small businesses with more concessional finance options into the future.
"The RIC has nearly 3000 customers across Australia who are using their loans to improve their financial resilience and invest savings back into their business and the loan funding reallocation will allow us to support more new farmers and farming small businesses."
The RIC now has $266 million loan funding in 2022-23, $112 million in 2023-24, $112 million in 2024-25 and $112 million in 2025-26. The new AgriStarter Loan eligibility to include farmers share farming land and leasing will come into effect from 1 April 2022.
The RIC's AgriStarter Loan is available to assist first time farmers with buying or establishing a new farm business or to support farm business succession planning.
