On Monday 12th April 15:00- 16:00 (Rome time, GMT+2), the FAO Technical Network on Sustainable Food Value Chains - Development & Finance (SFVC D&F) will organize the webinar "Transforming farmers’ access to finance through digital agriculture", to explore the pivotal role of digital technologies in agricultural value chains, how digital agriculture solutions help facilitate financial inclusion for farmers and the relevance of digital technologies to enabling farmers’ access to credit and savings products. 

Agriculture is the backbone of most Low and Middle-Income Countries, yet smallholder farmers face significant challenges that limit their agricultural productivity and earning potential. Among them, lack of access to finance restricts farmers’ ability to purchase agricultural inputs and make capital investments in their farms. Digital technologies allow farmers and other agricultural sector stakeholders to mitigate some of the challenges they face in agricultural production. 

Speakers: 

Panos Loukos is a Senior Insights Manager at GSMA’s AgriTech Programme. He provides intelligence and analysis around digital agriculture topics with a focus on innovative business models, emerging use cases, best practices, and socio-economic impact. Before joining the GSMA, Panos spent several years in leading analyst and consultancy firms with a special focus on mobile operators’ digital strategies. Panos holds a BSc in Plant Science from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and an MSc in Plant Disease from Imperial College London. More recently, Panos completed an MBA degree at the University of Manchester. 

Sonia Pietosi is an Insight Manager with the GSMA’s AgriTech Team. She provides insights and analysis instrumental to build the case for digital financial inclusion of smallholder farmers. Before joining the GSMA, Sonia worked as financial inclusion consultant at Oxford Policy Management and A2F Consulting, among other companies. She managed and conducted customer and market research, case studies and evaluations in more than 20 countries, mainly in Africa.  She holds a Masters in Economics from the University of Cagliari, Italy, and a Masters in Microfinance from the Solvay Business School in Brussels.  

Moderator: Massimo Pera, Project Coordinator/AgrInvest and SFVC D&F Technical Network Coordinator 

Disclaimer: The Rural and Agricultural Finance and Investment Technical Network (RAFI-TN) and the FAO’s Technical Network on Sustainable Food Value Chain Development (FTN-SFVC)  have been merged. The name of the new network is Sustainable Food Value Chains - Development and Finance Technical Network (SFVC D&F). If you would like to subscribe/unsubscribe from the mailing list, please write to [email protected] or [email protected]. 

Instruction for joining the webinar  

•Join Zoom Meeting here

•Access through Zoom app using Meeting ID: 916 6743 6527 

•Insert the Passcode: sfvcd&fweb   

•Please note that the session will start on time. 

•We invite all participants to kindly login 10 minutes before. 

•We suggest you to use Google Chrome or the Zoom App, in order to join the session. 

•We suggest to try the Zoom before here

•We also recommend you to check your time zone here. 

•For more technical information please feel free to contact: [email protected] 

Join by SIP 

[email protected] 

Join by H.323 

162.255.37.11 (US West) 

162.255.36.11 (US East) 

115.114.131.7 (India Mumbai) 

115.114.115.7 (India Hyderabad) 

213.19.144.110 (Amsterdam Netherlands) 

213.244.140.110 (Germany) 

103.122.166.55 (Australia Sydney) 

103.122.167.55 (Australia Melbourne) 

64.211.144.160 (Brazil) 

69.174.57.160 (Canada Toronto) 

65.39.152.160 (Canada Vancouver) 

207.226.132.110 (Japan Tokyo) 

149.137.24.110 (Japan Osaka) 

Meeting ID: 916 6743 6527 

Passcode: 4781825669 

Join by Skype for Business here.