We are winners of the NpM Innovator’s Challenge!
Agri-wallet and Geodatics have been awarded 125,000 euro prize money from the Innovator’s Challenge of NpM, Platform for Financial Inclusion. The challenge aims to support the development of financial services for smallholder farmers in developing countries based on geodata. Agri-wallet and Geodatics will work together to provide tailored agronomic advice and customized loans for agricultural inputs like seeds and fertilizer to smallholder farmers in Kenya.
The initiative will combine different sources of geodata, farmer profiles and crop growth models to provide effective, time and location specific advice to smallholder farmers, and to lower financial risk for farmers, financial service providers and other value chain actors. Together, the partners are perfectly positioned to tackle both sides.
Agri-wallet’s tested blockchain solution allows smallholder farmers to save and take up loans for agricultural inputs and connects them to input providers and processors. Geodatics’s experience in combining different sources of data to deliver tailored agronomic advice to smallholder provides a strong basis for the development of new geospatial information and advisory products and services.
With the prize money, the partners are given a great opportunity to test the feasibility of their solution. The pilot will include farmers growing soybeans and maize in Western Kenya during the 2019 main agricultural season.
The NpM Innovator’s Challenge ‘Geodata for Inclusive Finance and Food’ is an initiative of NpM, Platform for Inclusive Finance, Rabobank Foundation, FMO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Accenture.
