BCTA MEMBERSHIP STATUS
Active

SECTOR
Agriculture, Food & Beverage; Financial Services; Information and Communications Technology

HEADQUARTERS
Bangladesh

REGION OF INITIATIVE
Asia Pacific

SDG CONTRIBUTION

The Impact Goal

Bangladeshi agri-tech company, iFarmer joined Business Call to Action in December 2020 and made a commitment to provide mortgage-free agri-product loans to 10,000 farmers in rural Bangladesh through its tech-enabled supply chain network by 2021. It also committed to provide agri-financing solutions to 300,000 farmers in Bangladesh by 2023

The Market Gap

Almost 80% of the smallholder farmers in Bangladesh are unbanked and face challenges with access to formal finance, quality inputs and advisory, and market access. 70% of the farmers in Bangladesh have to rely on informal sources of capital or MFIs - paying an interest between 30-70%. These channels of financing mandates the farmers to a strict loan repayment structure which leads the farmers into a cycle of poverty. There are about 16.5 million farmers in Bangladesh and since most of them lack access to affordable credit, they cannot afford the cost of well-understood high-return investments like hybrid seeds, fertilizers, machinery, feed, and medicine.

Most of these farmers also lack the means to access and participate in markets. This invisibility limits their bargaining power and diminishes their ability to diversify into markets that could potentially increase their income. From a tech-enabled supply chain end, iFarmer connects these smallholder farmers to formal commercial buyers, thereby increasing traceability and creating opportunities to improve their livelihoods.

The Business Solution

iFarmer is an agri-technology company that helps small-scale farmers maximize their profits. They bundle agri-financing with farm inputs, farm advisory, insurance, and market access for smallholder farmers. The financing is facilitated in the form of farm investment from individuals and institutions. iFarmer takes the farmers' harvesting time into consideration, and as a result, the farmers are given a grace period of up to four to six months - tackling a nationwide seasonal loan gap. During this process, iFarmer ensures quality inputs, advisory services using IoT and remote sensing, and helps farmers sell their produce directly to institutional buyers while eliminating multiple middlemen. In order to maintain transparency, a digital database of the farmers' profiles are set up and stored. iFarmer provides quality inputs and advisory support to these smallholder farmers to ensure symmetric information flow and better decision-making by providing training. The company has now expanded its wing to fund vegetable, fish, goat, and duck farms.

About iFarmer: iFarmer is an agri-fintech company that started its operations in December 2018 with four people and 50 farmers in Bangladesh. They currently have a team of 40 people serving about 10,000 farmers consisting of 60% male and 40% female farmers. They provide affordable finance, high-quality inputs, agronomic advisory, and a direct link to buyers - ensuring higher profits, better quality yield, sustainable farming practices and an improved livelihood for the smallholder farmers.