ICT-based agricultural financing/mobile money services are no doubt
the result of firm collaboration between finance institutions such as
banks and telecoms companies. Industry watchers have however observed
that in African countries where it has been highly successful, the
telecoms company rather than the bank leads the partnership. This model
has led to massive usage by rural dwellers who constitute the greater
percentage of the unbanked and who are engaged mainly in farming and
other agribusinesses.
Below are highlights of some agric financing tools that have been
tested and proven in East African countries and some other countries.
But CIS will enable farmers to build a credit history for negotiating
better credit terms. This is similar to the credit bureau system in
Nigeria but in this case it is specifically for farmers or agribusiness
investors.
· Agrilife Platform owned and developed by Mobipay Kenya Limited is a
cloud-based technology platform designed to use mobile phone and web
platforms to enable groups of smallholder farmers to access financial
services, markets and other services that are relevant to them. Agrilife
enables players in the agricultural sector – including banks,
micro-finance institutions, insurance companies, cooperatives,
investors, and agricultural input providers – to have access to data
about farmers’ financial and physical supply chain.
This enables farmers’ credentials to be established, minimises risk
and gives the farmer easier access to affordable credit. Farmers are
able to use the technology to make requests from their mobile phones/web
platforms, and via Agrilife the requests are authorised and service
providers are able to react to the request.
· Mobipay, on signing up service providers, agrees on a commission,
which is transaction based, enabling Agrilife to be sustainable. So far,
Agrilife has turned over $18 million and Agrilife is present in Kenya,
Uganda and Zimbabwe.
· AgroCentral is Jamaica’s first digital agricultural clearing house
that utilises Web-to-SMS and SMS-to-Web technology to connect small
farmers and businesses. Through AgroCentral, businesses have the ability
to source large amounts of crops directly from farmers and farmers will
be able to sell their available produce directly to businesses.
AgroCentral facilitates effective linkages among farmers and
businesses and operates by using a database that holds complete
profiles, on both farmers and businesses. Farmer profiles include farm
location, crops grown, supply capability and cell phone contacts.
For businesses, profiles include business location, product
requirements and ease of transaction. This information along with the
two-way SMS portal allows for efficient communication of market
information and exchange of goods.
· Ensibuuko is a mobile and web application that integrates SMS and
mobile money services to enable saving and credit associations (and
other financing organisations) to handle savings and make loans to
smallholder farmers.
· FarmDrive Limited operates on the fact that more people are
becoming interested in farming. They have disposable income that they
want to invest, but they do not want to farm. FarmDrive seeks to connect
smallholder farmers to such investors.
A farmer keeps records of their productivity, expenses and revenue
for the farming activity. This is analysed to reveal performance
patterns and build a credit profile for the farmer. Investors are then
given access to credit profiles of farmers who have applied for
investments and can connect with them.
· Farmer Management System (FMS) – Within farmers’ organisations, FMS
is a tool through which the credit provided to the farmer is controlled
and managed. In doing this, the farmer is given access to accredited
input suppliers and the benefit of better prices due to economies of
scale. FMS serves as an electronic wallet for the producer linked to
specific suppliers within the defined ecosystem.
This electronic wallet has various accounts which enable production
and trade transactions to be captured in the detail required by the
stakeholders within the value chain. The combination of the electronic
platform with the management services creates the FMS – ‘the solution’
which is provided by Vest Farm.
· Farmforce is a web and mobile platform built for use by large-scale
contract farming schemes composed of smallholder farmers. The system
allows company agronomists and production managers to control which
inputs growers apply to their fields, ensuring that that approved
chemicals are used and that the correct maximum dose, pre-harvest
intervals, and maximum number of applications per season are observed.
The system provides support for data collection for international
safety and sustainability standards, such as Global GAP. Farmforce has a
loan management module which supports cash and input loans calculated
on the size of farmers fields. The Farmforce mobile application has a
secure harvest purchasing module (including loan repayments) which is
integrated with mobile weighing scales and a bluetooth printer for use
at collection centres to improve transparency.
The system downloads data online or offline, enabling technical
assistants to capture data in very remote areas. The system also
provides detailed weekly production forecasts. Farmforce supports low
end android mobile phones like the Samsung Galaxy Pocket which are cheap
($110), portable and easy to use.
The Musoni System
This is a cloud-based Management Information System (MIS), aimed at
micro-finance institutions and savings and credit cooperatives looking
to use technology to improve efficiency and reduce their operating
costs. Aside from the core MIS functionality, the system integrates with
mobile money transfer services (enabling microfinance clients to
receive and repay their loans and savings through their mobile phones);
send automated SMS reminders to clients; and enables loan officers to
carry out client registration and loan applications in the field using
the Musoni app. All these features make the system perfectly suited to
organisations working in rural areas.
Tangaza Pesa
This is the brand name for a mobile virtual network operator
business, licensed by the Communication Commission of Kenya and the
Central Bank of Kenya to Mobile Pay Limited (a fully owned Kenyan
company). Tangaza Pesa offers mobile money transfers, voice calls, and
access to the internet and data in Kenya across multiple channels.
One of Tangaza Pesa’s market solutions is the Value Chain Automation
Service. Specific to agri-value chain financing services, the platform
enables prospective farmers seeking financing to securely register with
the financiers, apply for loans and credit, receive loans, and make
repayments from the comfort of their mobile phone (across all networks).
The financiers are able to automate the loan application and approvals
process, disburse funds, and monitor loans performance through
customised reports and communication.
On value addition through marketing, the platform allows farmers to
register and ‘post’ their produce onto the virtual market place for
buyers to see. It also enables buyers to register and order, aggregate
(at collection centres which ensure quality control) and make payments.
UMarket disbursement portal
UMarket disbursement is a portal system that addresses the bulk
payment needs of organisations via mobile phones. The system targets
farmers, remittance firms, teachers, manufacturers and other businesses.
Registered Tigo Cash users and all other network users are able to
receive money through this platform. Money sent to them is redeemable
from accredited Tigo cash agents. They are also able to use their
electronic money to pay for peer to peer transactions and airtime
purchases.
Umati Capital
The Umati Capital platform is a suite of integrated mobile and web
applications which are able to track supply information from source to
point of processing. This information is then utilised to provide credit
to various entities within the supply.
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