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Cutting Edge Agriculture: How Artificial Intelligence, Satellites and Big Data are Transforming Farmers’ Access to Finance
There are many reasons for the $450 billion global agricultural finance gap. But much of the challenge stems from lenders' inability to monitor farmers' output, estimate their income and assess their risk of default, says Ruchit G Garg of Harvesting Inc. He explores how artificial intelligence and satellites are addressing that data imbalance, helping lenders reach many of the world’s 500 million smallholder farmers for the first time.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology, Telecommunications
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Why Coffee Farmers are Poor – And How an Innovative Ownership Model Can Help
Joseph Nkandu grew up on a coffee farm in Uganda and knows firsthand how farmers struggle to earn a living. While agriculture dominates Africa's economy, value chains largely exclude farmers from much of the retail value of their produce - a system that keeps many coffee farmers from generating savings and reinvesting to improve their yields. Nkandu founded the National Union of Coffee Agribusinesses and Farm Enterprises, where he advocates a "farmer ownership model." That model, he writes, is ready to scale.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Will AI be a bane or boon for global development?
From tracking cattle to bespoke weather forecasts, AI technology is helping smallholders across Asia and Africa. But it is by no means clear yet whether it will be a game changer in eliminating global poverty.
- Categories
- Technology
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Sun, Water, Data: How to Truly Grow Africa’s Agricultural Transformation
Technologies such as blockchain, the Internet of Things and machine learning are expected to enable a new era of agricultural prosperity in Africa. But many of Africa’s millions of smallholder farmers experience difficulties because they lack access to quality data. Dr. Gilbert Saggia of SAP East Africa asks how the continent should adopt new technologies across the agricultural value chain to help its farmers meet the demands of a population that is expected to grow by 1.3 billion people by 2050.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
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Blockchain technology is being used in the early disruption of Kenya’s agribusiness
In many emerging markets, food retailers along with smallholder farmers, struggle to secure loans and develop a credit history. And without the proper financing, many of them fail to scale their businesses.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The Straightest Path to Social Impact: The Power of Focusing on Farmers
After speaking to hundreds of low-income farmers in Nepal, India and Myanmar, Aditi Seshadri learned some basic truths about the challenges they face, the importance of their work - and the outsize value of interventions aimed at supporting them. She explores the reasons why a focus on farmers can maximize a social enterprise's impact.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Blockchain for Agriculture: Improving Supply Chain Efficiency and Access to Finance for Smallholder Farmers
Though blockchain applications in agriculture are still in early stages, they have intriguing potential that merits increased investment and exploration, says Nikki Brand. She discusses several innovative uses of the technology across the agriculture supply chain, and highlights new Stanford University research on the organizations and initiatives that are leveraging blockchain to drive social impact.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
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Sustainable crop certification could help world’s poorest farmers
Sustainable crop certification schemes could be missing the poorest farmers who are most in need of their benefits, according to a new Atlas Award-winning paper in Biological Conservation. In their study, a team of researchers from the UK and the US mapped one million of the world's commodity crops, including banana, cocoa, coffee, and tea, showing where they are certified. They suggest that if schemes developed stronger standards and targeted poor areas more effectively, they could make a bigger impact - if they can also increase consumer demand for certified products.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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