Crop receipts have become a secure and efficient financing instrument in Ukraine that enables farmers to use their future crops as collateral to access financing for inputs such as seeds and fertilizers. Supported by the IFC project, over 2,000 farmers in the country have issued 4,500 crop receipts for 40 crops in just a few years to obtain over $1 billion of financing from 200+ creditors (60% of which was input suppliers) and the NPL ratio remains less than 1%. The presentation explained the details of the project and summarized the key success factors ranging from proactive government, out of court enforcement, public register to developed and diversified supply chains. During the Q&A, the discussants and the participants further discussed the possibility to introduce crop receipts in other counties.
Crop receipts have become a secure and efficient financing instrument in Ukraine that enables farmers to use their future crops as collateral to access financing for inputs such as seeds and fertilizers. Supported by the IFC project, over 2,000 farmers in the country have issued 4,500 crop receipts for 40 crops in just a few years to obtain over $1 billion of financing from 200+ creditors (60% of which was input suppliers) and the NPL ratio remains less than 1%. The presentation explained the details of the project and summarized the key success factors ranging from proactive government, out of court enforcement, public register to developed and diversified supply chains. During the Q&A, the discussants and the participants further discussed the possibility to introduce crop receipts in other counties.
Cooperative Financial Institutions, CFIs, face very specific challenges in addressing the impact of COVID-19 which stem from their cooperative nature as well as from their ability to access public resources to cope with the consequences of the pandemic. A panel of distinguished practitioners will discuss these aspects, looking at how CFIs have fared in comparison to other financial entities and at the challenges they will have to address in the years to come to adapt and expand their services
An introductory webinar jointly organized by SAFIN and AGRIFIN
This webinar was the first of a series of virtual discussions dedicated to understanding the implications of the COVID-19 crisis on agri-SME finance and possible short and long term responses. The session started with a presentation of data and analysis conducted by FAO on the current impacts on agricultural supply chains and their possible consequences. The panelists addressed how the crisis is affecting farmers organizations, agro-dealers and other agribusinesses along the value chain, as well as African financial institutions operating in the sector, and they laid out some of the emerging responses and areas where opportunities to “build back better” can be identified. During the Q&A session, the panelists underlined the need for greater and better informed collaboration across and beyond the agricultural finance ecosystem, the importance of measures to improve women’s access to finance in agriculture, and the critical role of digitalization of market and financial transactions during the current crisis and most likely also in the recovery phase
In collaboration with the World Bank Agricultural Finance team, a team of students from Columbia School of International and Public Affairs as part of the Capstone Program conducted this yeara study on the role of insurance in promoting climate-smart agriculture. Climate change is resulting in an increased frequency and severity of droughts in countries such as Senegal and Ethiopia. For smallholder farmers who are dependent on rainfed agriculture and have limited protection from weather risks, climate change has the potential to devastate livelihoods, perpetuating the cycle of poverty in rural communities. Climate-smart agriculture offers the potential to increase the adaptive capacity of farmers while increasing incomes. However, climate-smart investment entails risks and costs that oftentimes risk-exposed farmers are unwilling or unable to manage. The team developed an interactive risk analysis framework that simulates the farmer’s decision- making process for various investment options using data and parameters for a smallholder farmer in Senegal. The model showed that. at lower levels of climate risk, farmers may rely more on risk reduction technologies rather than insurance to cover production risks. In such a case, government support for adoption of such technologies rather than insurance may be more effective. At higher levels of climate risk, farmers may need both technology and insurance to manage production risks. Under these conditions, subsidizing insurance could be considered, as insurance may function to mitigate the residual risk that technology is unable to mitigate.
The report aims to explore and analyze the major gaps in financial inclusion and access to finance in Romania, as identified in the Technical Note on Financial Intermediation prepared in the context of the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) (2018). The FSAP technical note analyzed the factors at play explaining the relatively low and declining level of financial intermediation in Romania for both the household and the corporate segment and offered policy recommendations to support sustainable enhancement of financial intermediation. The report is organized as follows: chapter one conducts a geo-spatial mapping of financial inclusion and access to finance for both individuals and enterprises. Chapter two is a diagnostic assessment of the state of finance for agriculture and identifies constraints and potential opportunities. Chapter three provides an overview of the role of the cooperative financial institutions in financial inclusion especially in rural areas and recommendations how this may be enhanced.
The report was prepared under the Vietnam Country Support Program of the Financial Inclusion Support Framework, an initiative of the World Bank supported with funding from the Netherlands and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Agriculture remains economically and socially important in Vietnam despite agriculture’s declining share of gross domestic product (GDP). The share of primary agricultural activity in the GDP has fallen to 13 percent, compared with more than 30 percent two decades ago. The active labor force in agriculture remains as high as 45 percent. However, agriculture is still very important in some regions such as the Central Highlands and the Mekong River Delta. Agriculture finance in Vietnam has to address two fundamental challenges: (a) facilitating financial inclusion and (b) supporting the transformation and growth of agriculture.
This presentation was delivered by Andre Dellevoet from African Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) at the AgriFin Financing Agriculture Forum 2012. The presentation traces the growth of AECF, a social venture capital fund whose purpose is to catalyze pro-poor growth in Africa by encouraging and financing private sector innovations in agri-business, rural financial services, and renewable energy adaptation. The presentation highlights positive impacts generated from the implementation of AECF projects in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Kenya, and Tanzania.
While the COVID-19 crisis has caused disruptions in African agricultural value chains, access to financial products and services for agri-SMEs to engage in markets has remained critical. In this webinar, we will explore how actors that provide or facilitate access to value chain and trade finance for agri-SMEs have responded to the crisis. As in earlier sessions in this SAFIN-AGRIFIN joint webinar series, our focus will be particularly on how the crisis has brought out new opportunities to strengthen business models in value chain and trade finance, and what promising innovations are emerging in the landscape.
Speakers
Iris van der Velden, Global Director Innovation & Insights, IDH (Chair)
Iris is the Global Director of Innovation & Insights at IDH, leading a team of experts on key impact areas such as better incomes, better jobs, sustainable landscapes, and reduction and storage of GHG. She joined IDH in 2013 as a specialist working on smallholder finance and on making services for smallholders more sustainable and effective. She developed the Service Delivery Model methodology and is now leading the Farmfit Intelligence Center.
Ayodeji Balogun is the CEO of AFEX Commodities Exchange, where he leads a team of experts leveraging technology, innovative finance, and inclusive agriculture to connect agri-SMEs and smallholder farmers to commodity and financial markets. Ayodeji has almost twenty years’ experience in trading across West Africa as well as in building and scaling businesses across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Andrew Barr-Sim, Managing Director, Vallis Group Limited
After 7 years in the British Army, Andrew embarked on a career in commodities in 1987 starting with 5 years as a sugar broker in London, England. Andrew is now the Managing Director and a minority shareholder of Vallis Group Ltd. Since 2005, Vallis has handled 50 million tonnes totalling $30 billion worth of goods and provided services for 130 different products.
Kola Masha, Managing Director, Babban Gona
Kola is the Managing Director of Babban Gona, an award-winning social enterprise in Nigeria, part-owned by the farmers it serves. Kola has significant leadership experience in venture capital, corporate finance, business development, marketing and operations across four continents with multiple global companies, including GE, Notore and Abiomed. Kola also has extensive public sector experience as the Senior Advisor to the Nigerian Minister of Agriculture.
Mariel Mensink, Rural Finance Advisor, Fair and Sustainable Consulting
Mariel has over 25 years’ experience in rural and agri-business development; rural finance and value chain finance, micro-finance, business development services, market linkages and supply chain development. She has worked in Africa and Asia, gaining experience in management and policy advise, organizational development and financial sector policy development, as well as development of gender and rural finance strategies. She is currently working for Fair and Sustainable Consulting, a subsidiary of ICCO- a Dutch-based development organization.
