KUWAIT CITY, Nov 29: Head of the Kuwaiti Farmers Federation, Abdullah Al-Dammak, called on the government to postpone agricultural loan installments for an additional six months, reports Al-Jaridah daily. In a statement, Al-Dammak justified his plea on the immense pressure and severe suffering the Kuwaiti farmer has been subjected to since the outbreak of the pandemic, as a result of the severe shortage of agricultural workers and insane increase in salaries, while making it impossible to bring in new workers from outside the country, in light of the temporary ban on issuance of new work permits and disallowing labourers from more than 34 countries in Kuwait.

Among other reasons are high prices of seeds, fertilizers and equipment used, and despite all this, the farmer wants to increase production and provide twice as much as he produced in the previous periods in order to secure the needs of the local market. He pointed out that all Kuwaiti farmers stand together behind the government based on their conviction that Kuwait deserves more from them, and during the current crisis, the farmers have demonstrated their ability to fulfill the market need in terms of agricultural products.

Therefore, the farmer needs more encouragement and assistance from government and a sense of its suffering because of the labor shortage and high prices of raw materials in the countries of export.

Al-Dammak stressed that Kuwaiti farmers are in dire need of government support following the decision to postpone the installments due the Industrial Bank of Kuwait, similar to what has been done for small and medium enterprises, noting most of them are primarily consumer projects and not productive. He added, “We know that Kuwaiti government always stands by Kuwaiti farmers and provides a lot of support, but we are now in a very critical position, and going through exceptional circumstances by which we need more help, so the Kuwaiti farmer invests all his financial capabilities towards increasing the rate production.”