SmartMoney International’s CEO, Michael Spencer, argues that financial institutions need to develop closer working relationships with the rural communities they seek to serve
© SmartMoney International
Smallholder farmers in Africa continue to face numerous hurdles accessing credit or loans to increase their production. Amongst other factors, partnerships are key to addressing this, but governments need to take the lead, state experts from the sector.
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Tech firms, brokers and insurers are working to make index-based insurance profitable and sustainable without subsidies, by cutting costs, sharing data and improving efficiency.
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As China’s government pledges to help funnel more aid, development finance and private-sector capital into African agriculture, what’s motivating the flow and is it having a positive impact?
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As agri-tech firms and other innovators turn their attention to the protection, tracking and last-mile delivery of agricultural commodities, their apps and services are helping to reduce the risk associated with lending to farmers.
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Distributed ledger technology promises to help plug a trust gap in agricultural commodities trade and finance, with new platforms offering farmers a bigger pool of buyers for their harvests.
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A crowdfunding platform and an agriculture-focused non-profit offer their advice on how to navigate the crowdfunding process successfully, and what they would do differently.
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Improving rural women’s access to finance represents an untapped business opportunity for financial service providers prepared to tailor products to meet their needs and to find innovative ways to overcome social and logistical hurdles.
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Loan guarantee funds can be a powerful tool in helping smallholders access finance, but getting the model right is vital.
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The planned launch of grain futures contracts in Zambia will help farmers and other stakeholders to protect themselves from volatile prices and could encourage other countries to follow suit.
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Through incentives, training and technical assistance, USAID’s 5-year Financing Ghanaian Agriculture Project (FinGAP) has changed the way financial institutions and business advisory service providers engage in agriculture.
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Governments across Africa are looking to protect pastoralists from the impacts of extreme weather with livestock insurance programmes. But what works?
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by Yassir Islam
Alternative finance in the form of angel investors is providing important seed money to jumpstart agripreneurs and push them to profitability.
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With many smallholders having neither the collateral nor credit history to qualify for a loan, alternative credit scoring pilots are springing up to help banks assess the true risk of would-be borrowers and tap this potentially lucrative sector.
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by Claude Biao
Togolese farmers are being trained in how to make better use of their land and, by establishing detailed business plans, they have also improved their access to finance.
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by Sophie Reeve
Enterprise challenge funds in Africa are matching grant funding with agribusinesses that have the potential to grow and create impact for rural populations. By mitigating against market risk, challenge funds are boosting the development of investable and sustainable businesses.
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by Bob Koigi
Connected Farmer Alliance, a mobile-based payment solution developed by a public-private partnership, is transforming agri-finance for value chains such as nuts and milk in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique, as well as helping farmers to access credit.
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The African Development Bank (AfDB) has recently launched its new ten-year Strategy for Agricultural Transformation in Africa.
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by Anne Perrin
Bamboo Finance and Louis Dreyfus Commodities are launching a €46 million investment fund, NISABA, to support agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. The fund will support small and medium enterprises along the value chain by improving access to data and training, and by linking producers to end consumers.
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