Huge interest in a federal government-funded drought loan has prompted Agriculture Minister David Littleproud to top up the program by $2 billion and employ more people to help farmers fill out the application form.
The additional funding will double the total Regional Investment Corporation (RIC) farm and small business loan funding to $4 billion.
But loan applications received after September 30 will not be eligible for the two-year no-repayment, interest-free terms, although borrowers approved after that date will pay a discounted interest rate of 1.92 per cent.
Mr Littleproud said the RIC had been a victim of its own success.
"When it was first started, it was expected that … we'd only get around 300 applications a year [for concessional drought loans] and we're getting around 600 [applications] a month," he said.
"To June 2020, there have been 2,491 applications [in about 12 months]."
There has been criticism of the application process, with reports some farmers had waited up to a year to learn if they had been approved for a drought loan.
But Mr Littleproud said an additional $50 million in operational funding would be made available to the RIC for 2020-21.
Rush of applications
Drought-affected farmers now have just over two months to apply for a RIC loan before the interest-free period ceases.
"We wanted to give farmers enough heads up that if they wanted to apply for the $2 million drought loans and pay no interest and no repayments, that they needed to get their applications in," he said.
"It's been a very generous program that the taxpayer has provided to the Australian farming community and it's been well-earned and well-needed but there comes a time when we as a country need to pay the bills.
"Effectively, we're saying that that period of no interest and no repayments has to end but we're going to give you a concessional rate of 1.92 per cent in its replacement after September 30," Mr Littleproud said.
Loans of up to $2 million were available for farm businesses and up to $500 000 for agriculture-dependent small businesses.
