Agricultural Development Fund

The Agricultural Development Fund (ADF) is the entity responsible for supporting and funding enterprises, individuals, and projects operating within the agricultural sector, poultry and livestock farming, and fishing in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It seeks to achieve sustainable food security and preserve the environment and animal resources. Its headquarters is located in Riyadh, the capital city, and it has branches in the cities and governorates of the Kingdom.

The fund was established as the Agricultural Development Fund in 2009 as an extension of the Saudi Arabian Agricultural Bank, established during the reign of King Saud Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in 1963.

The bank continued to carry out its tasks for around half a century before it was transformed into a development fund. The Agricultural Bank granted its first loan of SAR6,000 in favor of a beneficiary, upon the bank's approval on January 25, 1963.

ADF is organizationally related to the National Development Fund, which is responsible for monitoring the works of development funds and banks in the Kingdom. However, ADF possesses its own legal personality and independent financial autonomy. It has a board of directors chaired by the Minister of Environment, Water, and Agriculture. The board of directors oversees the work of ADF and the achievement of its objectives.

ADF disburses loans totaling SAR20 million, tailored to the requirements of each project and contingent upon satisfying the terms.

ADF also grants direct loans, including development loans, developmental and operational loans, specialized project loans, and operational loans for specialized projects. Additionally, ADF offers services to address problematic projects and collaborates with local banks to provide credit facilities, ultimately financing agricultural products and activities.

ADF assumes many tasks and roles, including supporting the agricultural sector projects and their development, investing in projects that use modern agricultural technologies, contributing to fostering food security in the Kingdom, and offering consultations to individuals and agricultural enterprises.

ADF funds a number of agricultural products, projects, and activities, namely funding livestock breeding, ensuring the import of green fodder, ensuring the import of wood, funding veterinary establishments, funding date factories, funding fishing boats, funding movable and immovable apiculture, poultry-related projects of all types, shrimp aquaculture, greenhouses projects of all types, dairies production and manufacturing, and feedlot management. ADF also offers agricultural tourism loans, defined as funding products allocated for tourism establishments in rural farms.