How nurseries and digital wallets are driving inclusiveness in the fruit and vegetable value chain

In March 2020, our colleagues Kain and Eliudi hit the road to Nairobi for an exchange visit to learn more about the impact of the coaching model for smallholder farmers in Kenya. Ever since our partners Crop Care and ICRA started the coaching model approach in Kenya in 2016, it has shown a huge positive impact increasing farmers’ productivity by adjusting to better farming practices and increasing farmers’ market knowledge. Kain and Eliudi observed the different aspects of the coaching model and learned about tangible solutions to tackle intervention challenges. This experienced will be shared with farmers in Pangani, where Rikolto is implementing the coaching model, and later on expanded to other regions in Tanzania.

While the exchange visit resulted in many lessons learnt, the following two innovations were the highlight of the trip: the agri-wallet and the commercial nursery.

The Agri-wallet…

• is an innovative solution that ensures that all actors in the agriculture supply chain are well financed. Digital financial transactions provide transparency and reduce risks.
• empowers smallholder farmers to save, borrow and pay for income generating activities to increase food security and fight poverty.
• provides loans with which farmers can only buy seeds, fertilizer or tools for crop protection. They can only spend their savings or loans to invest in their farms. Farmers need to save 5% to 30% of the total amount of the production loan needed in order to get a loan.
• is also pre-financing buyers by paying farmers on the aggregated produces to avoid unnecessary delays.

A commercial nursery…

• specialises in raising quality seedlings, which are the foundations for high crop yields.
• invests in professionally raised seedlings from good quality seeds.
• links farmers directly to certified input supplier companies by selling high quality horticultural seeds to farmers.
• offers training to farmers and works with certified input companies to establish demonstration plots showcasing agricultural innovations.