Burundi is establishing a 300 billion Burundian franc (more than $100 million) credit facility to finance agriculture, livestock and agro-processing investments at an annual interest rate of 5%, the government announced this week, in one of the largest state-backed lending pushes for the sector in the country’s recent history.
The facility, to be administered through CRDB Bank Burundi, was unveiled Aug. 21 in Gitega by Prime Minister Nestor Ntahontuye. The announcement was made alongside the minister of environment, agriculture and livestock, the finance minister and CRDB Bank Burundi’s managing director. Burundi’s Ministry of Finance confirmed the facility’s size and interest rate in a statement posted to its official X account, and CRDB Bank Burundi has separately described the arrangement as a financing facility for eligible projects.
According to the government, the funds will target crop production, livestock, agricultural and livestock processing, machinery and equipment, along with other projects considered to carry significant economic impact.
Land and credit remain separate tracks
The facility is part of a broader government push to release state-owned land for agricultural and livestock use. But officials were explicit that the two processes are not linked: securing land does not automatically qualify an applicant for the 5% financing.
Under the announced structure, Burundi’s Agriculture Ministry will handle land applications, while CRDB Bank Burundi will process financing requests independently. That distinction means prospective borrowers will need to separately satisfy the ministry’s requirements for productive land use and CRDB’s own lending criteria — a detail likely to shape how widely the facility reaches beyond established companies to smaller cooperatives and individual farmers.
A response to a tightening credit market
The facility arrives as Burundi’s private-sector lending has been contracting. The International Monetary Fund’s 2026 Article IV assessment found that private-sector credit fell from about 41% of GDP in 2023-24 to 35% in 2025, as government securities came to account for roughly a quarter of bank assets. The IMF warned that continued government borrowing could crowd out private lending by competing with businesses for banks’ resources.
The IMF’s 2025 assessment had already flagged agriculture’s limited access to finance and inputs, alongside underinvestment in processing, and recommended stronger cooperatives, improved infrastructure and greater value addition to boost competitiveness.
Measured against that backdrop, the new facility is substantial: IMF monetary data put total private-sector credit at an estimated 8.28 trillion BIF in 2026, meaning the 300 billion BIF facility equals roughly 3.6% of the country’s entire private-sector credit stock in a single program.
It also sits alongside existing public spending on agriculture. Burundi’s 2026-27 national budget allocates about 616.2 billion BIF to the sector, according to an assessment of East African Community budgets published by Burundi Times, covering fertilizer subsidies, improved seeds, livestock disease control and production incentives. The government says the new facility is meant to complement — not replace — that spending, by helping investors acquire machinery, equipment and processing capacity.
CRDB’s growing footprint
CRDB Bank Burundi already runs an established agribusiness lending operation. Its 2024 annual report said the bank had expanded credit access to small and medium enterprises, women entrepreneurs and agribusinesses, with its MSME loan portfolio reaching 19.4 billion BIF and its corporate loan book growing 35% during the year.
The bank’s position strengthened further in 2025. CRDB Bank’s consolidated annual report shows its Burundi subsidiary grew total assets by 55.7% to the equivalent of 2.31 trillion Tanzanian shillings, while deposits rose 58.3% to 1.10 trillion shillings. Profit after tax increased 9% to 43.7 billion shillings.
Why agriculture, and why now
Agriculture remains the backbone of Burundi’s economy. The World Bank estimates the sector accounts for 31.6% of GDP and employs about 85% of the population, though it describes the sector as dominated by low-productivity, subsistence-level farming — leaving room, the Bank notes, for small and medium-sized businesses to move into higher-value processing and export markets.
Burundi’s economy grew by about 4% in 2025, the World Bank said, helped by favorable rainfall that lifted agricultural output. But the country continues to face significant macroeconomic headwinds, including foreign-exchange shortages and average inflation of roughly 34% in 2025. The IMF projects that stronger agricultural and mining exports will help support Burundi’s external position in coming years, naming agriculture, mining, investment and electrification among the key drivers of projected growth.
Open questions
The government’s announcement did not specify the full financial architecture of the facility — including its total duration, maximum loan size per borrower, collateral requirements, repayment periods, eligibility thresholds, or whether the state will subsidize the gap between the 5% rate and CRDB’s standard cost of lending.
Those unresolved details will likely determine whether the facility functions primarily as a tool for large, established agribusinesses or extends meaningfully to cooperatives and smaller producers — the segment the IMF and World Bank have both identified as most constrained by limited access to credit.
The government has framed the initiative as part of its longer-term Vision 2040 and Vision 2060 development strategies, with officials citing goals of increasing production, expanding local processing, creating jobs, reducing food imports and boosting exports.
