The AgriFin Update is Mercy Corps AgriFin’s periodic newsletter highlighting our recent learnings, insights, publications and other activities, including links to our favourite resources from other actors in digitally-enabled services for smallholder farmers. For more information, please visit our website (www.mercycorpsafa.org) or join us on Twitter.
Which barriers do smallholders in Ethiopia face accessing Digital Financial Services? With support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and in partnership with the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), we assessed 1) the Enabling environment, 2) Smallholder Farmer needs and 3) Solutions-Supply Side Landscape in the Ethiopian Agriculture Ecosystem. Download the Ethiopia Ecosystem Report here and the Select Value Chain Analysis here.
Is there a business case for financial institutions to serve smallholder farmers? We worked with the Zambia National Commercial Bank (ZANACO) to build and launch AgriPay, a mobile financial platform for smallholders and the first of its kind in Zambia. During the product design phase, AFA conducted human centered design research with women farmers and women groups to understand their needs and incorporated these into the product design. The platform now serves over 3,500 farmers around safe storage for their funds, information regarding good animal husbandry and farming practices, timely payments for their produce, and increased access points / rural agent networks to transact. Read the full case study here.Promoting Smallholder Uptake, Adoption and Referral of Soil Testing Services We conducted a pilot program to test smallholder uptake of soil testing kits, by incorporating the AgroCares soil testing service at selected DigiFarm/iProcure depots, and testing different customer journeys / sensitization models. Among other insights, we found that youth are twice as likely to take up soil testing, and human touch is critical to ensure farmers implement the test recommendations or recommend it to their friends. Read a detailed report of the surveyand share the infographic.
Youth in Agriculture: A New Generation Leverages Technology In Kenya, youth have a distinct approach to agriculture and tend to prefer shorter season, high-value farm enterprises such as horticulture, poultry, bee keeping and rabbit rearing. We found that 90% of young farmers in Kenya also have high levels of engagement with information and communication technology, and identified four personas of Kenyan youth engaged in agriculture who use digital services differently. Read the Youth Persona Casehere.
We supported the development and piloting of HaloYako, a digitally enabled saving service in Tanzania offered by Halotelin partnership with FINCA Microfinance Bank, to improve the financial well-being of young people in rural areas. The insightsfrom the product pilot have been instrumental to HaloYako’s success and are relevant for other providers focused on youth in rural areas.
The DigiFarm platform is continuously undergoing enhancements to maximize social impact and benefit for individual smallholders, facilitating institutions, and the broader agricultural/farming ecosystem. AFA collaborated with Georgetown University Initiative on Innovation, Development and Evaluation (gui2de) to evaluate DigiFarm’s impact to-date through randomized controlled trial experiments. Preliminary insights show that education and gender are significant predictors of active use of the platform. Download the Impact Assessment report here.Highlighting Gender at theNinth Annual African Green Revolution Forum Our Program Director Leesa Shrader was one of two keynote speakers on the panel for Solutions for African Women and presented AgriFin’s insights on African Women Entrepreneurs in Agriculture at AGRF 2019 earlier this month. Download the deck here.
