Banco ADOPEM is to provide courses in rural financial literacy to one thousand farmers in five provinces in the south of the Dominican Republic to give them a greater awareness and knowledge of the concept of market-oriented production, help them develop basic administration skills for their businesses, and implement a simple system for recording their expenditure and income.
The bank will run 25 training sessions aimed at 625 people in the provinces of Bani, Barahona, Neyba, Azua and San Juan de la Maguana. Most of the participants are customers of the bank aged between 23 and 62.
The workshops will take place between February and August 2014 and are sponsored by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation in Development (AECID) and CODESPA.
Mercedes Canalda de Beras-Goico, executive president of Banco ADOPEM, said that “the financial literacy training program for the rural population is designed to provide farmers and producers with information and tools so they can run their businesses more efficiently”.
Canalda de Beras-Goico added that the aim of the courses is to “reinforce the skills required to set up, manage, and administer a business and to market the products generated by their farming enterprise on the small or medium scale”.
A team of specialized instructors will develop and guide themed modules on budgeting and investment, farm credits and indebtedness, family savings, farm inventory and systems for recording farming activities (farm accounting).
These training courses are a continuation of the pilot program of courses carried out in 2013 in which 612 people were trained.
The training areas all produce common crops. The agricultural production of San Juan focuses on beans, pigeon peas, rice, pumpkin, yam, yucca and onion. In the case of Azua the main crops are plantains, bananas, yucca and watermelon. In Baní the most important crops are onion, ají, plantain, okra, and goat and pig breeding, while in Barahona the main crops are bananas, green bananas, lemon and grapes.