A new loan scheme dedicated specifically to the agri-food sector has been confirmed by Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe, but it won't be in place until 2018.

In his budget speech, the minister confirmed a €25m fund that can be leveraged to create a fund with the "Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI) and others".

Last spring, the €25m delivered in the previous budget was leveraged into a €150m fund for farmers, delivered through the pillar banks.

This fund is in addition to the €300m Brexit fund for business, including farms, announced earlier in the minister's speech.

It is the clearest policy delivered for farming in the minister's speech, which has pledged an additional €64m in the budget of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in 2018, bringing it in total to €1.5bn.

It is expected that Areas of Natural Constraint will get a funding boost from this increased allocation, but we must wait for confirmation of this.

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