How robotics and Artificial Intelligence will shape access to finance for Smallholder farmers in East Africa?

An audio-visual podcast by MicroSave provides an insight into how Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and drone technology have a potential to improve access to finance for smallholder farmers in East Africa.

MicroSave is an international financial inclusion consulting firm operating in eleven offices across Asia and Africa. While strengthening the capacity of local institutions, the firm designs and implement market-led solutions for financial services and most importantly designs a variety of financial inclusion models.

In the above referred podcast entitled, “Drones Providing Confidence in Smallholder Agriculture Finance” MicroSave reviews the contribution of agriculture to the 40% of total GDP in East Africa and its potential in youth employment.

Nevertheless, access to credit remains the biggest barrier to the sustainability of smallholder farmers. MicroSave credit offerings allow providers to better meet smallholder agricultural finance needs by aligning repayment requirements with harvest cycles.

In East Africa, agriculture employs 80 % of the population with most of them women and there is great potential for precision agriculture. For example 14 countries have enacted the regulations for drones use and also the African Union has recently released the drones on the horizon report that recommends a variety of technologies for agriculture – with drones highlighted.

MicroSave interviews the representative of AgroInforKenya, a platform aimed at providing information and guidance to farmers, who sheds light on the drone technology and also how these technologies will influence farmers’ access to credit.

MicroSave is working on a data-based model where each farmer is profiled based on the specific farms which is used to map services that farmers can access such as mobile access to insurance, credit and tailored information.

For more information here

References consulted: 

• Drones Providing Confidence in Smallholder Agriculture Finance
• MicroSave: Financial Inclusion in Action Blogs