1. In line with the Prime Minister’s vision of transforming agriculture sector, Government of Pakistan (GOP) introduced Risk Coverage Scheme for Small Farmers to enhance bank financing to small and marginalized farmers, as well as the farmers of unserved and underserved areas. The scheme has been notified vide ACFID Circular No. 2 of 2025 dated August 20, 2025.


2. Under this scheme, an end-to-end digital solution titled as ‘National Subsistence Farmers Support Initiative’ (NSFSI) has been developed in consultation with banks to facilitate subsistence farmers/tenants to obtain collateral-free financing from banks and MFBs. The NSFSI will enable the farmers to apply for agriculture loans at a centralized portal, without the need to visit a bank branch. After necessary verifications and agronomic assessment through Land Information Management System (LIMS), the application will be forwarded to the bank(s) chosen by the applicant for further processing. A key feature of the NSFSI is the in-kind disbursement of at-least 75% of the financing to ensure provision of the quality inputs (seed, fertilizers, pesticides and diesel etc.) to the farmers from reputed Agri-merchants on-boarded by banks/MFBs while up to 25% can be disbursed in cash to meet other farming expenses. Further, respective farmers will also be provided Agri-advisory services for improving their crop productivity. The complete Term Sheet is enclosed as Annexure-A.


3. While most of the Banks/MFBs have already integrated their systems with the centralized portal and LIMS and have on-boarded the Agri-merchants, the others are encouraged to complete their integrations and Agri-merchants on boarding processes at the earliest. To ensure a seamless and uniform rollout across the industry, a standardized Process Flow developed in consultation with the Banks/MFBs is enclosed as Annexure-B.


4. The financing extended to small and marginalized farmers under NSFSI will not only have the 10% first loss coverage in line with the afore-said Risk Coverage Scheme for small farmers but also be entitled to operational cost subsidy of Rs.10,000 per borrower for net increase in the number of outstanding borrowers.


5. All Banks/MFBs are thus highly encouraged to fully leverage the end-to-end digital solution for providing financing to the subsistence farmers, as per the Term Sheet and the Process Flow given at Annexure-A and Annexure-B respectively.


6. To make the name of the portal and mobile app user friendly for farmers, NSFSI has been renamed as “Zarkhez-e” with a tag line “Asaan Digital Zarai Qarza,” and the same will be used for all communication and awareness purposes.


7. Please acknowledge the receipt.

Encl: 

Annexure-A: Term Sheet

Annexure-B: Process Flow