Norinchukin Bank To Support Agri-Corporations

Norinchukin Bank will launch a JPY 100 billion (USD 1.1 billion)  loan program to support large agricultural corporations in this April. The program is aimed at promoting regional development and enhancing the overseas competitiveness of Japanese agricultural products. It is the bank's first such undertaking for the farm sector.

 The farmers' bank will also establish a JPY 5 billion (USD 56 million) fund to invest in about 100 corporations trying to obtain farmland or establish new businesses, providing an average of 50 million yen to each.

The initiative is not very significant given the size of the bank, but it is the first major  attempt to support  agricultural "corporations", to which the bank has traditionally kept some distance in order to favor agricultural "co-operatives" and their member individual farmers.