Farmerline is a social software company with the mission to transform millions of farmers into successful entrepreneurs. Farmerline connects farmers to markets, finance, weather forecast, new farming tips, inputs dealers and equipment services. Farmerline has an information service that sends SMS and voice messages on weather forecasts, market prices, new farming techniques, agrochemical applications, and finance directly to the mobile phones of farmers in local languages. Through their mobile phones, farmers can also connect to global markets and buy farm inpunts and services. Farmers using...
The US Embassy in Nepal organized a ‘Farm to Table’ event on August 29th to identify opportunities to maximize the market potential of Nepal’s agricultural sector. The conference brought together agro-entrepreneurs, buyers, suppliers, financial service providers, and farmers from Nepal and the United States. The main discussion of this round-table was based on finding innovative ways to improve efficiency and maximize productivity in Nepali agriculture. One of the main recommendations was to improve value chains by investing in ICTs connecting farmers to knowledge, market information and...
The Youth for Africa and SDGs YAS ! Portal is an online portal created by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to support the development and growth of youth entrepreneurship in Africa. The portal aims to help entrepreneurs by providing them advice on enterprise development, serve as an African hub for support services concerning African youth entrepreneurship and run challenges and award financing to youth to develop SDG related business ideas. UNDP is seeking advice and help through an online challenge to develop the online portal and keeping it sustainable. The challenge is open...
Over 90% of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 million smallholder farmers lack access to formal credit. Although agriculture accounts for around 65% of employment and 32% of gross domestic product, less than 6% of commercial loan recipients are smallholder farmers. The problem is on both sides: on the one hand, farmers cannot purchase quality inputs to improve their production, on the other hand, financial institutions cannot provide loans without an accurate assessment of the farmers’ financial viability. Farmers are therefore left with little access to credit, and financial institutions with a hole...
