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mehdibella

AgroCenta: Digital food distribution platform creating shared value for businesses and ... - 2 views

  • Our Cropchain and LendIt platforms solve these two problems. Cropchain is our user-friendly integrated agricultural supply chain management platform that allows organizations to manage everything in the agricultural supply chain from outgrower schemes, logistics, traceability to digital trading, quality assurance and data analytics. LendIt, our financial inclusion platform enables farmers access digital services such mobile money payments for commodities sold, micro-lending/input financing, crop insurance and pension scheme for the informal sector.
    • nouhaila_zaki
       
      This excerpt is important because it highlights how AgroCenta solves two persistent problems in the Ghanian agricultural value chain. First, agricultural supply chain management is ensured through the Cropchain platform. Second, the financial inclusion mission of the company is ensured by the LendIt platform.
  • Our Cropchain and LendIt platforms solve these two problems. Cropchain is our user-friendly integrated agricultural supply chain management platform that allows organizations to manage everything in the agricultural supply chain from outgrower schemes, logistics, traceability to digital trading, quality assurance and data analytics. LendIt, our financial inclusion platform enables farmers access digital services such mobile money payments for commodities sold, micro-lending/input financing, crop insurance and pension scheme for the informal sector.
    • aminej
       
      This article shows that AgroCenta is built around an online trading platform which connects smallholder farmers to a larger structured market. It was founded by two ex-esoko employees Francis Obirikorang and Michael K. Ocansey in 2015. It is located in Ghana and more precisely in the capital which is Accra. The service is used through a smartphone so the main target customer here will be small holder farmers who have a phone.
  • Onboarding smallholder farmers onto the AgroCenta platform. Agents visit communities where smallholder farmers who deal in sorghum, rice, maize, millet and soybean are registered onto the AgroCenta platform to trade. Agents also work with farmer based organizations (FBOs) to carry out trading activities. 2 Facilitating trade deals on behalf of Smallholder farmers. Agents deal with buyers who wish to purchase directly from smallholder farmers. AgroCenta agents are trained in the field of technology, sales and marketing to effectively help smallholder farmers who have little or no knowledge of technology trade easily. 3 Gathering market information and statistical data. Agents are assigned to major trading markets across the country to collate data on market pricing for various commodities. This information is relayed to smallholder farmers via Voice technologies in languages they read and understand.
    • sawsanenn
       
      This excerpt is important because it shows how Agrocenta's agents help smallholder farmers, what are the responsibilities they have towards their customers. Plus, it encourage other farmers to join the digitalization world to improve their businesses.
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  • Onboarding smallholder farmers onto the AgroCenta platform. Agents visit communities where smallholder farmers who deal in sorghum, rice, maize, millet and soybean are registered onto the AgroCenta platform to trade. Agents also work with farmer based organizations (FBOs) to carry out trading activities. 2 Facilitating trade deals on behalf of Smallholder farmers. Agents deal with buyers who wish to purchase directly from smallholder farmers. AgroCenta agents are trained in the field of technology, sales and marketing to effectively help smallholder farmers who have little or no knowledge of technology trade easily. 3 Gathering market information and statistical data. Agents are assigned to major trading markets across the country to collate data on market pricing for various commodities. This information is relayed to smallholder farmers via Voice technologies in languages they read and understand.
    • sawsanenn
       
      This excerpt is important because it shows how the Agrocent'as agents help the smallholders' farmers access different financial services, plus it encourages the other farmers to join the digitalization world and develop their businesses
  • Our Cropchain and LendIt platforms solve these two problems. Cropchain is our user-friendly integrated agricultural supply chain management platform that allows organizations to manage everything in the agricultural supply chain from outgrower schemes, logistics, traceability to digital trading, quality assurance and data analytics.
    • mehdibella
       
      this section shows how much Agrocenta is dealing with its supply chain management to allow farmers benefit from different schemes
  • AgroCenta is made up of dedicated and talented people. Our core team is made up of project managers, agricultural experts and consultants, software developers, regional and district managers and field agents.
  • Onboarding smallholder farmers onto the AgroCenta platform. Agents visit communities where smallholder farmers who deal in sorghum, rice, maize, millet and soybean are registered onto the AgroCenta platform to trade. Agents also work with farmer based organizations (FBOs) to carry out trading activities.
    • mehdibella
       
      AgroCenta is made up of dedicated and talented people. Our core team is made up of project managers, agricultural experts and consultants, software developers, regional and district managers and field agents.
  • ase directly from smallholder farmers. AgroCenta agents are trained in the field of technology, sales and marketing to effectively help smallholder farmers who have little or no knowledge of technology trade easily.
  • AgroCenta is made up of dedicated and talented people. Our core team is made up of project managers, agricultural experts and consultants, software developers, regional and district managers and field agents.
    • ghtazi
       
      this part is important because we can see how devoted and dedicated is agrocenta when it comes to choosing their team
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    Some of the advantages that will come with this platform are reducing unemployment and connecting between the lower social class and the high social class in order to develop relations and improve their services. Farmers will gain more profit since it will become more regulated and distribution facilities will be smoother between the two
kenzabenessalah

FarmDrive: Connecting farmers to financing | Mercy Corps - 0 views

  • While financial inclusion in the country has increased, many farmers remain excluded. Limited financing for farmers is due, in part, to a lack of available credible risk-assessment information for financial institutions. Many small farmers are unbanked and off the financial grid, without credit profiles to verify or back up details on their annual income, business expenses or yields.
    • tahaemsd
       
      Without thiis information, farmers are left with little to no access to financial services, while lenders miss out on the opportunity to build their client base and agricultural loan portfolios.
  • FarmDrive generates real-time credit reports for small farmers, allowing them to access loans from financial institutions and agricultural input providers via mobile phone. 
  • FarmDrive collects expense and revenue data from farmers via SMS and combines it with satellite imaging, remote sensing technology and alternative data points (e.g., soil analysis, weather forecasts) to create detailed yield estimates and assess credit risk.
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  • FarmDrive overlaps our focus areas of agriculture and financial inclusion, empowering the world’s most vulnerable farmers with the digital financial services they need to strengthen and improve their livelihoods. 
    • mehdibella
       
      FarmDrive collects expense and revenue data from farmers and combines it with satellite imaging, remote sensing technology and alternative data points to create detailed yield estimates and assess credit risk.
  • We’ve connected FarmDrive to various partners and expertise to help them scale, as its usage increases in other developing markets in sub-Saharan Africa. 
  • Reports allow credit providers to make informed lending decisions and easily reach rural clients, expanding access to financing for small farmers. As a result, farmers have greater control over their livelihoods – equipped with what they need to increase their crop yields, improve their incomes and invest their additional revenue back into their families and communities.
    • kenza_abdelhaq
       
      FarmDrive collects data from farmers using different technologies which allows the company to generate farmers' credit reports which allow loan providers to make informed decisions and therefore give more access to financing to small farmers.
  • Since, FarmDrive has reached hundreds of farmers with its suite of financial services, credit reports and financing options, with a particular focus on serving women and youth farmers typically neglected by the formal financial system.
    • kenzabenessalah
       
      The focus that FarmDrive has on serving women is essential to keep in mind. We must dig deep as to why they are being neglected by the financial system and make sure that they never get fooled by them in the future.
  • In Kenya, most small farmers — around 7.5 million — lack access to small loans to help them buy what they need to improve their production and make the most of their land – things like quality fertilizers, better seeds, livestock and micro-irrigation.  
    • kenzabenessalah
       
      Knowing the percentage of the population who do not own bank accounts as well as the percentages of loans that others have access to is a must to help improve the economic situation in Kenya. Such details, like interest rate, etc. are essential in helping people construct a well structured economic strategy so that all Kenyans benefit from these financial services and never fall back again.
ghtazi

AV Ventures Invests in AgroCenta, Supporting Digital and Financial Inclusion of Ghanaia... - 0 views

  • AV Ventures, ACDI/VOCA’s impact investing subsidiary, recently completed its investment in AgroCenta, a technology-driven agricultural platform provider in Ghana. The funding made by AV Ventures is part of a US$790,000 pre-Series A investment round with other participating international institutions, including Shell Foundation, the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and Rabo Foundation, with support from AgroCenta’s strategic advisor, Qbera Capital.
    • tahaemsd
       
      With the newly secured funding, agrocenta will widen the reach of its smallholder farmer financial inclusion programs
  • The digital services AgroCenta provides along the selected cereals value chain also improve the repayment of loans by smallholder farmers. The services provide farmers with an end market through the offtaking of produce and through facilitating the provision of high-quality agricultural inputs, which maximize their yields and productivity. To date, the average farmer on CropChain has increased their income by 35 percent and their crop yields by 40 percent, while reducing their food waste by 25 percent. AgroCenta has also made strides to promote gender and social inclusion; nearly half of its CropChain users and more than half of its microloan borrowers on LendIt are female smallholder farmers. 
    • nouhaila_zaki
       
      This excerpt is important because it introduces the results of using AgroCenta on smallholder farmers, ranging between the maximization of productivity, of income, reduction of food waste,to gender and social inclusion.
  • Founded in 2016, AgroCenta operates two integrated digital platforms in Ghana, CropChain and LendIt, to help address challenges related to smallholder farmers’ access to markets and financial services.
    • kenza_abdelhaq
       
      Since 2016, AgroCenta operates 2 digital platforms: - CropChain: integrated agricultural supply chain management platform. - LendIt: allowing access to financial services like mobile payments, microloans, crop insurance.
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  • Poor infrastructure and logistics prevent many smallholder farmers in Ghana from accessing large, urban markets where they could obtain better prices for their crops. Many of these farmers lack information on fair market prices, which leaves them susceptible to selling at low prices to middlemen. Without a strong credit history, many of them also have limited access to finance for purchasing high-quality agricultural inputs that would enable them to scale beyond subsistent production.  
    • sawsanenn
       
      this excerpt shows reasons why smallholder farmers should consider agrocenta to increase their profitability and their revenues
  • For AV Ventures, the investment is part of its long-term strategy of providing innovative and catalytic capital to support growth-oriented small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) like AgroCenta that make up the “missing middle” of investment — too large for microfinance but too small or too early-stage to attract private equity investors. These SMEs are often the backbone of economies and potential drivers of innovation, but too often they miss out on financing that could enable their growth and longevity.  
    • hibaerrai
       
      Agrocenta attracts more investors as it is considered among small and medium businesses that promote innovation. In fact, the fintech is specialized in agricultural loans, something not that common in the country.
  • CropChain is an integrated agricultural supply chain management platform that provides smallholder farmers with access to markets. Farmers use the platform to advertise their produce, while large offtakers or buyers of selected cereals use it to make purchases or enter long-term offtaker purchase contracts with AgroCenta. AgroCenta leverages the platform to source cereals directly from smallholder farmers to supply to large offtakers who have contracts with the company. This allows AgroCenta to earn margins between the price it pays farmers and the contractually agreed upon price with offtakers.
    • mbellakbail69
       
      Agrocenta draws even more investment amongst SMEs that promote innovation. This extract shows some of the reasons why smallholders should consider Agrocentra for increasing the profitability and income .
  • “This is a significant milestone for AgroCenta, having the support of leading institutions, particularly with the COVID-19 backdrop, underlining the strength of AgroCenta and the importance of its mission. The demand for agricultural raw materials from offtakers in the brewery, manufacturing, and consumer sector is increasing exponentially because of the easing of COVID-19 restrictions that were put in place by the government of Ghana. Hence, this capital injection will help to secure purchases at fair and transparent prices from smallholders — a much needed lifeline for many who are at the proverbial bottom of the pyramid.”
    • ghtazi
       
      in this excerpt, we can see how agrocenta takes the pandemic situation and what are the solutions that the company adopts to face it.
mehdibella

GSMA | Meet our portfolio start-ups: AgroCenta, Ghana | Mobile for Development - 0 views

  • The start-up provides access to truck delivery services and real-time market information via SMS and IVR. Building on this platform, AgroCenta now enables farmers to receive mobile money, build their credit score and access financial services (like crop insurance) through its latest mobile product, AgroPay.
  • In a country where agriculture is the primary economic occupation of many — employing 52 per cent of Ghana’s labour force — the AgriTech start-up launched AgroTrade, an online platform that connects smallholder farmers in the staple food value chain to a wider online market.
    • nouhaila_zaki
       
      This excerpt is important because it reflects the importance of agriculture in Ghana, and which products/services offered by AgroCenta serve to do: AgroTrade connects smallholder farmers to a wider online market & AgroPay allows farmers to receive money, build their credit score and access financial services i.e. crop insurance through their mobile phones.
  • In Ghana, AgroCenta has set up a mobile money API integration partnership with MTN and Vodafone to pay smallholder farmers directly and seamlessly via mobile money through its AgroPay platform.
    • nouhaila_zaki
       
      This part reflects the collaborations engaged by AgroCenta with mobile operators MTN and Vodafone to support financial literacy and facilitate the transfer of mobile money.
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  • Both mobile operators will also be supporting AgroCenta farmers with financial literacy training on-the-ground. AgroCenta has also strengthened its partnership with Vodafone Ghana to allow smallholder farmers on its platform to access free voice calls between farmers and discounted mobile devices and bundles
  • As of July 2019, AgroCenta had registered 46,100 smallholder farmers on the AgroTrade platform across four regions and 640 communities.
  • Through this partnership, Vodafone Ghana can liaise with the AgroCenta team to onboard AgroCenta farmers on its Small Office/Home Office (SoHo) packages.
    • mehdibella
       
      As of July 2019, AgroCenta had registered 46,100 smallholder farmers on the AgroTrade platform across four regions and 640 communities.
  • Both mobile operators will also be supporting AgroCenta farmers with financial literacy training on-the-ground. AgroCenta has also strengthened its partnership with Vodafone Ghana to allow smallholder farmers on its platform to access free voice calls between farmers and discounted mobile devices and bundles
  • lack of access to structured markets, which leaves them at the mercy of predatory brokers or middlemen who buy at exploitative prices, and lack of access to finance, which means they may never move beyond smallholder farming to middle-level or even commercial farming.
    • kenza_abdelhaq
       
      The inability of smallholder farmers to access markets pushes them to sell to middlemen with exploitative prices and the incapacity to get loans also prevents these farmers to grow.
  •  
    "lack of access to structured markets, which leaves them at the mercy of predatory brokers or middlemen who buy at exploitative prices, and lack of access to finance, which means they may never move beyond smallholder farming to middle-level or even commercial farming."
aminej

WorldCover raises $6M round for emerging markets' climate insurance | TechCrunch - 1 views

  • WorldCover investor and EchoVC founder Eghosa Omoigui believes the startup’s insurance offerings can actually help farmers improve yield. “Weather-risk drives a lot of decisions with these farmers on what to plant, when to plant, and how much to plant,” he said. “With the crop insurance option, the farmer says, ‘Instead of one hector, I can now plant two or three, because I’m covered.’ ”
  • WorldCover’s platform uses satellite imagery, on-ground sensors, mobile phones and data analytics to create insurance options for farmers whose crop yields are affected adversely by weather events — primarily lack of rain.
  • For the moment, WorldCover only insures for events such as rainfall risk, but in the future it will look to include other weather events, such as tropical storms, in its insurance programs and platform data analytics.
    • tahaemsd
       
      worldcover model oes not assess or provide insurance payouts specificially for climate change
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  • the startup will look to possibilities to update its platform to offer farming advice to smallholder farmers, in addition to insurance coverage.
    • aminej
       
      WorldCover has managed to raise funds of 6 milllion which is huge. It shows that companies are more and more helping farmers and agriculture because it is very important for the development of a country
  • WorldCover, a New York and Africa-based climate insurance provider to smallholder farmers, has raised a $6 million Series A round led by MS&AD Ventures.Y Combinator, Western Technology Investment and EchoVC also participated in the round.WorldCover’s platform uses satellite imagery, on-ground sensors, mobile phones and data analytics to create insurance options for farmers whose crop yields are affected adversely by weather events — primarily lack of rain.
  •  
    WorldCover provides a solution for crop and smallholder farmers to protect themselves from weather uncertainty. The company gives an opportunity to those farmers to hedge against weather risks, which helps them increase their yield.
  •  
    Worldcover is an African-based Insurance that covers climate. It mainly targets farmers. It benefits from the use of satellite imagery and data analytics in order to create good insurance options to farmers.
  •  
    Worldcover gives small farmers the correct sort of insurance relying on their region.
mehdibella

FarmDrive Helps Unbanked Farmers in Kenya | The Borgen Project - 0 views

  • FarmDrive combats this lack of financial visibility by calculating alternative credit scores for Kenyan smallholder farmers. The startup requires users to input their expenses, revenue and yield via SMS and creates a platform for farmers to record business activity. FarmDrive then uses a complex algorithm to combine individual financial information with additional factors like the climate in the farmer’s region.
    • tahaemsd
       
      farmdrive eliminates some of the risk for banks by considering both the self reported financial history of farmers as well as exogenous variables that will affect their crop yields
  • By accruing farmer data, FarmDrive eliminates some of the risk for banks. FarmDrive has partnered with African financial firms who accept their alternative credit scores and determine appropriate loans for smallholder farmers. Lending institutions thus consider both the self-reported financial history of farmers as well as exogenous variables that will affect their crop yields.
    • mehdibella
       
      FarmDrive collects data from farmers via and combines it with satellite imaging, alternative data points to create detailed yield estimates and assess credit risk.
  • FarmDrive depends on aid organizations, like USAID, and private firms that operate in the agricultural industry. FarmDrive is expanding its data collection through new partnerships with Planet, a satellite company, and The Impact Lab, a data analytics group, to potentially incorporate climate information gathered via satellite imagery into its algorithm.
    • kenza_abdelhaq
       
      In addition to financial firms, FramDrive partners up with aid organizations, private firms operating in the agricultural industry, satellite company, and a data analytics group.
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  • There are 50 million smallholder farmers in Kenya, but less than 10 percent of this population has their economic needs fulfilled by traditional lenders. The agricultural sector makes up 32 percent of Africa’s GDP and employs 65 percent of its population, but less than 1 percent of bank lending goes to agriculture. Worldwide, there is an estimated $450 billion agricultural lending gap. African smallholder farmers face barriers to traditional lending because they are labeled high-risk borrowers by financial institutions. Traditional banks use credit scores and bank statements to determine a loan applicant’s riskiness. However, the average farmer in Africa cultivates fewer than five acres of land and owns no collateral or financial records.
    • aminej
       
      Unfortunaely for most farmers, they can't access credit from traditional banks because they are considered as high risk borrowers since they face many risks such as climate change, theft, lack of fertilizers. Now, through farmdrive everything changed with these new Fintechs who started giving more importance to farmers
tahaemsd

How Can Insurance Help Smallholder Farmers? | by Maelis Carraro | Finance for Life | Me... - 0 views

  • Robert is a father of four and lives in the rural areas at the outskirts of Tamale, in northern Ghana. He lives off his one hectare of land where he grows maize and groundnuts. He sells part of it to the local market and eats the rest with his family. Like many of the 475 million smallholder farmers around the world, he faces constant threats of droughts or other weather hazards that can destroy his family’s main source of subsistence: Crops. Ninety percent of farmers in Africa have no access to crop insurance or other safety net.
  • WorldCover addresses this problem by providing farmers with simple and affordable microinsurance policies, insuring their crops against the risk of drought. Microinsurance and farmers receive rapid payout in cases of drought during the crop growth period. WorldCover ran a full pilot project in 2015 among Rice and Sorghum farmers and signed up a significant number of farmers, with many more committed.
  •  
    We understand from this article that there is a real struggle for crop farmers in Africa when it comes to droughts or other weather hazards. World Cover has come up with a solution for these farmers by providing them micro insurance that is very cheap and that could be bought and used with their mobile phone.
mohammed_ab

Kenyan insurtech startup Pula raises $6M Series A to derisk smallholder farmers across ... - 1 views

  • Another startup is Apollo Agriculture which raised $6 million Series A, akin to Pula. Not only did the pair raise the same round, Apollo Agriculture and Pula both deal with providing financial resources to smallholder farmers.
    • nourserghini
       
      Apollo Agriculture is another rival in the industry that is also considered as a partner and complement in the industry.
  • Pula is solving this problem by using technology and data. Through its Area Yield Index Insurance product, the insurtech startup leverages machine learning, crop-cut experiments and data points relating to weather patterns and farmer losses, to build products that cater to various risks.But getting farmers on board has never been easy, Goslinga told TechCrunch. According to her, Pula has understood not to sell insurance directly to small-scale farmers, because they can suffer from optimism bias. “Some think a climate disaster wouldn’t hit their farms for a particular season; hence, they don’t ask for insurance initially. But if they witness any of these climate risks during the season, they would want to get insurance, which is counterproductive to Pula,” said the founder in a phone call.
  • Pula, a Kenyan insurtech startup that specialises in digital and agricultural insurance to derisk millions of smallholder farmers across Africa, has closed a Series A investment of $6 million.The round was led by Pan-African early-stage venture capital firm, TLcom Capital, with participation from nonprofit Women’s World Banking. The raise comes after Pula closed $1 million in seed investment from Rocher Participations with support from Accion Venture Lab, Omidyar Network and several angel investors in 2018.
    • aminej
       
      Pula has managed to raise over 6 million $ which is good for them since they will be able to help more farmers get insurance on their products. Keeping in mind that Agricultural insurance costs 4$ in Africa compared to other places where it costs at least 1000$
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  • Agriculture insurance has traditionally relied on farm business. In the U.S. or Europe with typically large farms, an average insurance premium is $1,000. But in Africa, where smallholding or small-scale farms are the norm, the number stands at an average of $4.It is particularly telling that the value of agricultural insurance premiums in Africa represents less than 1% of the world’s total when the continent has 17% of the world’s arable land. 
  •  
    Pula studies the risks that they might find with small scale farmers. I like this kind of behavior because you need to study every possible problem so you can outcome it the best way possible.
  •  
    What got my attention in this article is the disparity in insurance prices (premiums) between European and African countries. We see that the premiums for insurance for African farmers are only 1% the price of insurance for European farmers. This shows the big difference in purchasing power between African and European countries.
hibaerrai

FarmDrive | WSA - 1 views

  • FarmDrive is a Kenyan ¬based social enterprise that is unlocking access to financial services for over 50 million smallholder farmers in Africa. Using simple mobile phone technology, alternative data sets, and sophisticated data analytics, FarmDrive is closing the critical information gap that keeps smallholder farmers from getting loans that would allow them to grow and diversify their businesses. Potentially creditworthy smallholder farmers are often denied loans because they lack the traditional credit profiles that lenders rely on to evaluate borrowers.FarmDrive bridges the funding gap between smallholder farmers and financial institutions in two ways. The first step is to bring together multiple streams of data to create yield-predictive agronomic algorithms specific to each farming vertical and geographical region. T hese streams of data can be classified into three categories: 1. Agronomic Data: crop portfolio, soil health, drainage, weeds, pests, etc. 2. Remote Sensing Data: vegetation, weather conditions, climate trends, etc. 3. Market Data: offtake security, price trends, etc. FarmDrive then creates credit profiles for farmers by combining the agronomic algorithm with behavioral data. The behavioral data is obtained from farmers through a simple SMS/Android mobile phone application. With this application, Farmers can track their revenues and expenses, and also send demographic information to FarmDrive.
    • hibaerrai
       
      FarmDrive specializes in smallholder farmers businesses; it is not common in Africa. This Fintech helps farmers extract needed loans that will help them grow and expand. This initiative closes thus the gap between agricultors and financial services, and increases financial inclusion.
nouhaila_zaki

AgroCenta: Digital food distribution platform creating shared value for businesses and ... - 0 views

  • This is our financial inclusion platform targeted at smallholder farmers. We make it super easy for institutions to on-lend and disburse funds to a large network of smallholder farmers. We don't just give you access to farmers, we give you access to trustworthy low risk farmers.
    • nouhaila_zaki
       
      This excerpt reflects the financial inclusion concern of AgroCenta. The LendIt platform allows farmers to access to digital payments, micro-lending and crop insurance more easily thanks to it.
  • Farmer Registrations Know where your farmers reside, how much money they've been making in the past, their family sizes, their literacy levels and more. Inventory Management Easily track how many tons of commodities you have available across multiple locations. Quickly know where to concentrate more effort. Logistics & Tracking Which route is the most efficient to use for commodity pickups? How long will it take for customers to receive commodities they ordered?
    • nouhaila_zaki
       
      This excerpt reflects what the Cropchain platform introduced by AgroCenta does for its customers, namely enforcing traceability, transparency and accountability in the agricultural supply chain.
ayachehbouni

Kenyan Startup FarmDrive Uses Data Analytics to Connect Unbanked Farmers to Financial S... - 0 views

  • In its next phase of algorithm development, FarmDrive seeks to expand the environmental arm of the algorithm by incorporating more alternative data-sets, including satellite imagery and remote sensing data. They are currently engaging with Planet, a satellite company from Silicone Valley, and The Impact Lab, a Chicago-based data analytics firm to analyze the possibilities of using satellite images in predicting a farmer’s creditworthiness.In addition, FarmDrive also plans to use these environmental data-sets, in combination with crop cycle data to predict seasonal yield and influence agricultural insurance products.The startup also uses machine learning in generating the farmer’s profile by learning from the farmer’s input. Data points about the farmer’s behaviour, education level, and their interaction with the app are all analyzed to contribute to the farmers profile score.
    • hibaerrai
       
      FarmDrive employs different advanced methods to predict a client's creditworthiness. They also conduct psychometric tests to figure out their clients' characters. This makes the process professional and the customer base monitored.
  • Smallholder farmers, especially in Kenya face difficulties when it comes to accessing loans and financing from banks and other financial institutions. The agricultural sector is the backbone to Kenya’s economy, yet banks have very little incentive to work with farmers.
    • aminej
       
      FarmDrive use very advanced data analytics to evaluate the credit risk of farmers across Africa in order to help them access investments and funds. They use algorithms developed by their own team which is really good
  • FarmDrive founded in 2014 has built an innovative solution that provides “detailed risk profiles of smallholder farmers to financial institutions”. FarmDrive does this through a credit score, generated by an algorithm developed by the team, in-house. The algorithm relies on data-sets collected from the farmers through their mobile phones, alternative data and machine learning.
    • ayachehbouni
       
      The agricultural sector is crucial to Kenya. Yet, farmers have a very hard time getting loans from banks. Hence, as it helps in this aspect, Farmdrive might as well be saving the backbone of the country.
mehdibella

AGROCENTA - Make-IT in Africa - 1 views

  • AgroCenta is an agricultural technology platform that focuses on using technology to provide market access to smallholder farmers in Ghana. Their primary objective is to promote and facilitate fair trade for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa by connecting them directly to larger and structured markets. It thus connects them to large, medium and small businesses in order to sell to breweries, food manufacturers and processing industries without intermediaries. The different digital services the company provides in the fields are “Agro-Trade”, “Agro-Pay”, “Agro-Logistics” and “Agro-Information”. By improving the logistical process and removing exploitative buying from the value chain, smallholder farmers can sell at competitive prices and improve their financial livelihood.
    • kenzabenessalah
       
      AgroCenta allows farmers to sell their crops and tools to other businesses and manufacturers in an efficient and effective process. I find it amazing how such a concept can facilitate multiple services for many players.
  • AgroCenta is an agricultural technology platform that focuses on using technology to provide market access to smallholder farmers in Ghana. Their primary objective is to promote and facilitate fair trade for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa by connecting them directly to larger and structured markets.
    • mehdibella
       
      The different digital services the company provides in the fields are "Agro-Trade", "Agro-Pay", "Agro-Logistics" and "Agro-Information" that allows the farmer to make the best out of the crop
  • By improving the logistical process and removing exploitative buying from the value chain, smallholder farmers can sell at competitive prices and improve their financial livelihood.
tahaemsd

Insurtech startup to provide affordable insurance for farmers | Fraud & Cybersecurity |... - 0 views

  • Across the globe, smallholder farmers lose between $50 billion and $100 billion annually, often from natural disasters, but reportedly only 1% is insured from these accidents. As an example, in Feburary 2019, the company made several payouts to farmers in Kenya as poor rainfall caused large amount of crop failure.
  • Jason Schapiro, WorldCover Lead Engineer, said “Our algorithms are specifically calibrated to rainfall events by region and crop type, automatically triggering instant payouts to insured farmers through mobile money services like M-Pesa.”
  • World Cover is an insurtech startup which provides satellite-enabled climate insurance to smallholder farmers. The company was originally founded in 2015 as a fintech marketplace for climate insurance, and has consistently grown since then, providing support to many areas of Africa. Unlike traditional insurance companies, which require lengthy in-person evaluations, the company consolidates data on weather and crop yield obtained from satellites
    • tahaemsd
       
      WorldCover startup has continued to expand its services across AFRICA
  •  
    We can understand from the article, that there is a big market for fintech insurance companies. According to the article, farmers around the world lose between $50 billion to $100 billion just because of climate change. World Cover has seen that there is a great potential for growth in this industry and took the opportunity.
mohammed_ab

The Complex Insurance Coverage Reporter - September 2020 - The Complex Insurance Covera... - 0 views

  • Over the last decade, there has been a global increase in the focus on climate change and the risks and dangers associated with it. And for good reason. Damage from climate-related disasters was in the billions of dollars in 2019 alone. California wildfires caused $25 billion in property damage, while Typhoon Hagibis in Japan cost an estimated $15 billion. Other extreme weather events, including rampant brush fires in Australia, widespread droughts in East Africa and severe flooding in South Asia, have had devastating consequences.
  • Like Kin, NYC-based WorldCover was created in response to climate-related disasters. It works to provide drought insurance to farmers in Africa. When first launched, WorldCover was available only in Ghana and covered only one crop: maize. Since then, the company has expanded to multiple markets in East and West Africa, covering four categories of crops: cereals, legumes, root vegetables and perennials. WorldCover uses a combination of satellite imagery and on-the-ground sensors to understand local weather patterns in order to create insurance options for farmers facing some of the world’s worst droughts. The company uses its satellites to monitor rainfall patterns and trigger payouts immediately.
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    I think that the testing phase of WorldCover was very smart. World Cover started offering micro-insurance for only one type of crop which is maize. After a great success with this type of crop, the company started to broaden its coverage to other types of crops and to other markets like East and West Africa. The company uses machine learning and satellite imagery to analyze the weather and the land of the farmers which in my opinion helps the company in being very accurate and efficient.
mehdibella

FarmDrive - EWB Canada - 0 views

  • FarmDrive - EWB Canada
  • FarmDrive uses data analytics to connect smallholder farmers with financial institutions and credit, enabling crops and farmers to flourish. And all through a mobile phone.
  • FarmDrive uses data analytics and mobile technology to create financial profiles for farmers through a credit scoring model. When the financial institutions can view comprehensive profiles of a farmer’s economic performance, they are more likely to approve loans.By unlocking access to credit, FarmDrive enables smallholder farmers to access: Loans to purchase vital tools and assets. Insurance to bolster to protect against the natural seasonal vulnerabilities of farm work. Comprehensive financial profiles of their farming operations: a useful resource in scaling to service multiple partners or larger supply chains.
    • mehdibella
       
      As a result, farmers can: Grow their businesses. Provide additional business opportunities for local communities. Promote local employment. Create more food, health and education.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • FarmDrive uses data analytics and mobile technology to create financial profiles for farmers through a credit scoring model. When the financial institutions can view comprehensive profiles of a farmer’s economic performance, they are more likely to approve loans.By unlocking access to credit, FarmDrive enables smallholder farmers to access: Loans to purchase vital tools and assets. Insurance to bolster to protect against the natural seasonal vulnerabilities of farm work. Comprehensive financial profiles of their farming operations: a useful resource in scaling to service multiple partners or larger supply chains.
    • samiatazi
       
      As a result, farmers can: Grow their businesses. Provide additional business opportunities for local communities. Promote local employment. Create more food, health and education.
mbellakbail69

WSA IMPACT STORIES AGROCENTA | WSA - 0 views

  • Since 2017, AgroCenta has successfully completed two rounds of funding to the tune of $750,000 to expand operations in Ghana. In 2017, AgroCenta won the Seedstars Global Competition against other 72 startups from emerging markets across the globe. AgroCenta has grown its farmer base to 45,000 providing additional services of access to finance for smallholder farmers, bringing smallholder farmers onto the financial sector to enjoy services such as crop insurance, micro lending/input financing, mobile payments through mobile money and finally pensions schemes targeted at farmers and beneficiaries in the informal sector with special attention to women and youth. Since 2017, AgroCenta has helped over 28,000 farmers sell over 20,000MT of commodities to large, medium and small scale buyers across the country.   In December 2018, AgroCenta won a grant of $250,000 from GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator Fund to further build its financial inclusion platform AgroPay targeted at rural smallholder farmers.
    • mbellakbail69
       
      This start-up in agriculture has an impact and works towards zero starvation. Farmers make more profits by directly selling the goods to the off-taking companies and the company agrees to bring the products in a record time from point A to B, by passing intermediaries and paying wide price ranges.
mohammed_ab

Pula Secures Funding from Global Investors to Support Smallholder Farmers in Africa and... - 0 views

  • At Pula, we are radically restructuring agricultural insurance, using technology to insure the previously unbanked, uninsured, untapped market of 1.5 billion smallholders worldwide. We work in nine countries across Africa and Asia, and in 2017 alone, we facilitated crop and livestock insurance cover to 611,000 farmers in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Malawi.
    • nourserghini
       
      Pula serves many African countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria and Malawi.
  • Pula uses satellite data and farm yield measurements to understand how weather patterns affect a smallholder farmer’s yield, and uses this information to automate compensation in case of loss. The company also provides farmers with targeted agronomic advice via SMS messaging, helping them grow more from their existing landholdings.
  • Insurtech startup Pula announced today that it has closed a seed funding round to advance its efforts to provide insurance to smallholder farmers in Africa and South Asia.
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  • This injection of funds will enable Pula to invest further in its technology platform and service offerings.
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    I like the way Pula uses the latest technology in order to understand the weather and the possible problems that farmers might find. This is a very good strategy because farmers feel that Pula is doing its best to deliver the best insurance possible for them.
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    This excerpt shows that Pula has secured new funding to invest more in its technology. This is good news for its customers as they will benefit from better technology and more product offerings.
mohammed_ab

'Smart' insurance helps poor farmers to cut risk | Financial Times - 1 views

  • The policies or “smart contracts” currently under development are based on blockchain, the distributed ledger technology that underpins cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. This avoids the need for paperwork and means payouts can be triggered automatically when certain conditions are met, such as a specific number of days of drought. The system uses high-resolution satellite images to detect rainfall and plant growth data.Conventional crop insurance is too expensive for more than 500m small farmers worldwide, says Christopher Sheehan, founder and chief executive of US-based WorldCover, which developed the system. “But with machine learning and blockchain technology, we can process these data very cheaply to produce a really simple crop insurance product with premiums of $20 to $50 for a farmer who might only be earning $3,000 a year.” Payments can be made using mobile money transfer services such as M-Pesa.
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    I think that this article highlights the main benefits of blockchain technology on the insurance industry. It shows how blockchain has enabled easy and quick transactions to take place in the insurance world especially crop insurance. This technology has enabled companies like WorldCover to offer cheap insurance contracts for crop farmers to help them hedge against weather risks.
mohammed_ab

Products and Services - Pula - 0 views

  • We design and deliver best in class agriculture index insurance products to protect farmers
  • Pula handles end to end management of the delivery of insurance to farmers, including field operations, farmer onboarding/education and claims assessment and payouts.
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    Pula products offerings target African farmers who have difficulties paying for expensive insurance. They act as an intermediary between local insurance and global reinsurance companies and farmers to minimize weather risk on their crops.
tahaemsd

An alternative investment with WorldCover - 1 views

  • The product of WorldCover is certainly customer centric at its core. When initially launching, Chris went to Ghana and began speaking to the farmers there. To him, it was important they didn’t “sit around and design a product by committee,” but instead that they actually went and understood what the customer problems were.“I would ask a farmer, what’s your biggest problem today? What are you worried about today? Just a very general question, and they would say I’m worried that the rain won’t come. I’m worried that my crop will fail and there will be drought this year.” — Chris Sheehan, CEO WorldCover
    • mohammed_ab
       
      WorldCover service offering is customer centric. It's interesting to see that the founder, Chris Sheehan, actually visited many farmers to clearly understand their problems in order to create a solution that fits perfectly their needs. The majority of these farmers were afraid of weather uncertainty which affects their crop. Being a financial nerd, Chris Sheehan saw the opportunity of providing a financial product ( parametric insurance) and created one of the greatest fintech companies.
  • WorldCover is a socially conscious alternative to traditional investment avenues. Started in 2015 by Chris Sheehan and Shiliang Tang, they have focused on using finance as a “tool for good in the world,” to prove “that businesses with inherently positive social impact can also grow rapidly and create wealth for investors.”
    • tahaemsd
       
      Worldcover protects farmers from natural disasters, while giving investors diversified returns and direct social impact
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    In order to make the right decisions, the CEOS must meet with cutsomers in order to understand their problems.
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