Social Issue

The low profitability of smallholder farmers in Africa can be attributed to the difficulty of acquiring quality inputs, the lack of modern agricultural practices, and the lack of storage facilities after harvests to maintain the quality of the products. In addition, the lack of access to markets in order to sell their products at a fair price is a big problem and ends up being a factor that limits the willingness of farmers to make investments that improve their agricultural production.

Our Response

We have provided a loan to Farmerline, an agritech company created in 2016 with the goal of increasing smallholder farmer incomes by delivering high-quality information, inputs, training, financing and guaranteed off-take markets.

The company through the creation of a proprietary digital platform connects farmers to essential services and partnerships. In addition, Farmerline offers a reliable delivery method that ensures farmers receive timely inputs to improve productivity. Farmerline, through its crop purchasing business that was launched in 2020, has been purchasing  crops from farmers to resolve their challenges of storing and selling their produce.

Expected Social Impact

An impact study performed in 2019 has validated that Farmerline’s services enhanced farmer productivity  and this is expected to increase over time as more services are added to service their farmers.

Using our methodology to calculate Netri’s attribution, it is estimated that this loan will enable Farmerline to provide over 1.600 farmers per year with farming services that enhance their productivity and incomes.