Farmers in Portland Encouraged to Support PC Bank

Farmers in Portland have been encouraged to give more support to the People’s Co-operative (PC) Bank in the parish, in order to strengthen the bank’s ability to help the agricultural sector.
The call came from Howard Paulwell, Chairman of the Bank’s Committee of Management, when he addressed the annual general meeting of the bank in Port Antonio on February 17.
Mr. Paulwell told the farmers that the greater the support they gave to the bank, the stronger the bank would become in working with them and their families towards enhancing community development.
He assured the meeting that the PC banks were sund financial institutions in which the money they deposited would be safe and not exposed to any risks.Noting that PC banks were carefully monitored by the Jamaica Development Bank to ensure that members’ deposits were not used unproductively, Mr. Paulwell said not only did they offer a good interest rate on savings, but they also had the cheapest rate of interest on loans.
He encouraged farmers of the parish to increase their membership in the bank and make full use of the loan opportunities available to them from the institution. He reminded members with outstanding loan balances to honour their obligations and repay their loans or seek adjustments to their loan agreement with the banks, where they were having a difficulty to make repayments.
Mr. Paulwell said the bank was willing to work with farmers to address problems they were experiencing in respect of their loan repayments, adding that in such circumstances, the bank could make a number of options available to the farmers, including extending the repayment period, re-writing the loan to make the repayment more manageable and providing the farmers with additional loans where such assistance was necessary to help the farmers resuscitate their farms.
He told the farmers that the bank’s Board of Management was fully committed to continue lobbying for the upliftment of farmers in Portland and the development and diversification of agriculture in the parish, adding that the development of agro industries and agri-processing must be part of the effort to promote the growth and expansion of the agricultural sector in the parish.