Digital Agriculture in LMICs - 19 Dec #74
Last news update of the year with some numbers.. 3.7M farmer IDs now on Indian DPI Agristack, while CropIn and AGRA reach 2.2M farmers with digital extension
11/12/24
India’s Ninjacart launches startup programme to fuel technology partnerships
Indian agritech Ninjacart has launched its own agritech-focused startup programme to accelerate the growth of early-stage foodtech and agritech startups. The Ninjacart Startup Program will provide startups with access to its own advanced agritech technology (demand forecasting, sales management, pricing intelligence) and access to venture capital partners, such as Syngenta and Base Capital.
In addition, it will offer financial backing in the form of credits of up to USD 50,000 to offset platform and implementation fees during the first six months of participation, as well as expert business advisory. To be eligible for the programme, agritech and foodtech startups must be post revenue and established in 2020 or after. They must also be based outside of India and have raised up to USD 100,000.
Founded in 2015, Ninjacart has been focusing on partnerships and on exporting its technology to other markets. Its NinjaVenture initiative is its other international programme dedicated to exporting the company’s tech expertise via partnerships. The agritech is one of the main Indian B2B agri e-commerce platforms, together with DeHaat and WayCool. It has a network of 800,000+ farmers producing fresh fruit and vegetables, who are connected via its platform with 100,000+ retailers including kiranas (local neighborhood stores) and restaurants. As of December 2024, Ninjacart has raised a total of USD 508 million over 10 funding rounds from 36 investors, according to Tracxn.
16/12/24
Victoria Finance launches digital agri loan service in Tanzania
Tanzanian microfinance institution (MFI) Victoria Finance has launched KilimoPesa, a digital agriculture loan service for smallholder farmers. The service offers guaranteed digital loans via mobile phones to small agri entrepreneurs without traditional collateral. It is is made possible through a partnership with the Private Agricultural Sector Support (PASS) Trust. The partnership leverages PASS Trust's credit guarantee scheme, which mitigates the risk for lenders like Victoria Microfinance. PASS Trust is an organisation established by the Government of Tanzania under the Danish Government’s Agricultural Support Program to facilitate access to financial and business development services for agribusiness entrepreneurs.
Photo credit: Victoria Finance
KilimoPesa is available on the Mixx by Yas network (formerly Tigo Pesa), the unified brand name for AXIAN Telecom's fintech operations in Tanzania. For KilimoPesa, Victoria Finance is also working with the Tanzania Cooperative Development Commission (TCDC), a government institution that promotes the development of agricultural cooperatives. Established in 2009, Victoria Finance caters to the needs of underserved micro-entrepreneurs, primarily smallholder farmers.
17/12/24
3.7 million farmer IDs created as part of India’s Agristack
Last Tuesday, the Government of India said that more than 3,717,000 farmer identity cards have been created as part of the AgriStack (Kisan ki Pehchaan) initiative, a farmer-centric, open-source Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). AgriStack is a comprehensive database of records of farmers. The newly created farmer IDs include demographic details, as well as information on land holdings and crops sown, enabling farmers to digitally identify and authenticate in order to access government schemes including credit, insurance and market linkages. The objective of the government is to bring 60+ million farmers under the formal land registry system over the next three years.
Image credit: Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India
Besides enabling farmers to access government services, a key benefit of AgriStack is that it enables agritech innovations by providing a robust digital infrastructure that makes accessible a vast amount of data. AgriStack is one of the two initiatives under the government’s umbrella scheme dubbed 'Digital Agriculture Mission' (DAM). The other initiative is Krishi Decision Support System (Krishi-DSS), a database that integrates remote sensing data on crops, soil, weather, and water resources into a comprehensive geospatial system.
18/12/24
CropIn and AGRA reach 2.2M African farmers with digital extension services
In a new case study, Indian agritech CropIn has released details and interim results of its partnership with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). In 2021, the agritech partnered with AGRA to provide digital agricultural extension services, supporting climate resilience and enhancing productivity for farmers, across six countries: Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Tanzania, and Mozambique.
According to CropIn, about 2.2 smallholder farmers across the six countries have benefited from the intervention, and 8,000 Village Based Advisors (VBAs) have been trained to provide on-the-ground support and knowledge transfer. The initiative had the greatest reach in Nigeria (859,000 farmers) followed by Burking Faso (744,000).
Image credit: CropIn
As part of the initiative, which is still ongoing, CropIn supported geotagging, mapping farm plots for targeted interventions, and provided data-driven insights for actionable recommendations on irrigation, fertilisation, and pest management. The advisory was made available to farmers and VBAs via mobile phones. CropIn also deployed a centralised digitalisation platform for AGRA, its implementation partners and VBAs for a comprehensive review of farmer engagements. Established in 2010, Cropin is an agritech software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup leveraging AI and predictive analytics to help customers enhance farming efficiency and productivity.
This is the last news edition of 2024. I will be back very soon with some data-driven insights and an analysis piece on agritech funding in LMICs..
For now, I wish you happy holidays!!