Agricultural Specialist: Banking & Monitoring Support (Bloemfontein)

The Land and Agricultural Development Bank of South Africa (Land Bank) is South Africa’s only specialist agricultural bank established in 1912. The bank’s sole objective is to serve South African commercial and emerging farmers and bring specially designed financial services within their reach. These services enable farmers to finance land, equipment, improve assets and obtain production credit. The Land Bank provides financial services that have moved with the times and continues to provide services to agri-business and constantly reviews its offerings to ensure that they match the needs of an industry. As change has swept across the sector in South Africa, the socio-economic makeup of agriculture has altered, bringing new entrants from historically disadvantaged backgrounds onto the land. These new farmers, facing the challenges of establishing sustainable agri-businesses across the agricultural value chain, find that the Land Bank has been a commercial lifeline offering appropriately designed financial products that facilitate personal and commercial viability in a sector that is vital to the sustainability of South Africa and its people.

MAIN PURPOSE OF THE JOB

To provide a professional agriculture, economics and technical specialist service to support the Province in effectively evaluating the business case viability of financing customers, including conducting on-site visits to familiarize the Bank with the business operations in which the Bank will be investing its funds, with the additional objective of minimizing potential risks and financial losses.

To conduct on-farm agronomical and financial assessments for high-risk and delinquent clients and make recommendations to remediate as well as rate the farm/business according to the approved bank’s risk rating models, schedule inspections of the bank security and re-valuations, effectively manage the collateral in terms of the loan agreement and Collateral Management System (CMS) policy thereby identifying collateral shortfalls to minimize risk and prevent financial losses, refer farmers to service providers for technical support and make recommendations to improve the overall farm status and mitigate potential risks.

To provide ongoing technical advice to the provincial team to ensure the submission of high-quality applications for both new and distressed loans.