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Direct-to-Farmer Finance: Business models for serving the hardest-to-reach smallholders
An estimated 90 percent of smallholder farmers lack strong relationships with buyers, limiting their access to finance, inputs, training and other support. And it’s difficult for financial providers to reach them. That’s why direct-to-farmer finance is so important, says Dalberg’s Laura Goldman. She discusses a new briefing on the approach from the Initiative for Smallholder Finance.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education
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Watch the Replay of our Google Hangout with William Warshauer, TechnoServe’s New President & CEO
TechnoServe is an organization at the center of food security, farmer incomes and environmental sustainability. You’ve heard a lot from TechnoServe experts here on NextBillion, including a post just last week about outgrower farming models. So we’re glad to have the opportunity to host TechnoServe’s new president and CEO Will Warshauer, who has agreed to join us for our next Google Hangout here at NextBillion.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Case Study : ‘Digging in’ or ‘building out’ to benefit farmers and buyers in outgrower schemes?
What can we learn from growing tobacco? Although TechnoServe does not work with the crop, nor do we intend to, it turns out there’s a lot we can glean from the successes of tobacco outgrower schemes.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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How Agent Orange helped spawn the Socially Responsible Investing movement
Sustainable, socially responsible mutual funds would not exist without agent orange.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- impact investing
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Outgrower Schemes: A pathway to sustainable agriculture
Outgrower schemes, which link networks of unorganized smallholder farmers with domestic and international buyers, have demonstrated win-win potential – but don’t always live up to it. TechnoServe, in Part 1 of a two-part series, details its investigation into the features of effective and sustainable outgrower models.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education
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What’s Holding Agricultural Finance Back?: The MIX describes what’s needed to help this crucial sector grow
One of the most effective ways to reduce poverty is to increase agricultural productivity. But for many farmers, access to yield-increasing technologies and inputs requires access to financial products specially tailored to their needs, which are scarce in rural areas. Xavier Martin Palomas of the MIX discusses this challenge and how financial service providers and policymakers can address it.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Entrepreneurs Wanted : At next week’s SEEP Conference, exploring ‘push and pull’ approaches to Ag growth
Designing and sequencing push and pull approaches in the agriculture sector is challenging. While every context demands unique tactics and models, our experience suggests that local entrepreneurs play a central role in most cases, writes Sally Walkerman of the Aga Khan Foundation who is leading a discussion on the subject at the SEEP Annual Conference.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Climate smart farmers get tech savvy to save India’s bread basket
Erratic weather, rising temperatures, declining water resources and labour shortages are threatening India's bread basket state of Haryana, forcing farmers to abandon age-old practices and adopt technology to ensure food supplies for millions.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment, Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- nutrition
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