Technology for Social Good - myAgro seeds a mobile future
- Summary:
- myAgro, a non-governmental organisation based in West Africa, is using mobile phone technology to help farmers put aside the money they require to pay for seeds and fertiliser.
Cash flow is a big issue for smallholders, who make up 80% of the world’s poorest two billion people. While many farmers who live below the poverty line are relatively cash-rich at harvest time, without any consistent means of saving, by the time planting time comes around, they often do not have access to the $50-$100 required to buy goods in the bulk in which it is sold.
Anushka Ratnayake, myAgro’s founder and chief executive, spotted this vicious circle when working for Kenyan-based microfinance organisation, the One Acre Fund.
But by talking to the farmers, she also discovered it was not loans that they were after to finance their endeavours, as was widely supposed. Instead they were looking for a savings scheme to help them put away money when they had it to cover those times when they did not.
Although Ratnayake was unable to find a suitable savings model in either Africa or Asia, she moved to Mali in 2011 after having a brainwave of her own. At the time, Mali was the 13th poorest country in the world and more than 70% of its population worked in farming, which meant it was ideal to test her idea. She explains that the myAgro concept revolves around a “simple model of mobile layaway”:
Mobile layaway is a digital way for farmers to pay little by little in advance for seeds, fertiliser and training packages – similar to how one tops up phone credit on a phone. Each payment is stored in the farmer’s myAgro layaway account and myAgro bulk purchases the seed and fertilizer farmers have chosen. It then delivers it to the farmers before the rains begin.
Growing and expanding
The farmers pay the market price for the seeds and fertiliser and the NGO charges a fee of between 10-20% for delivery and training in subjects such as modern planting techniques that help protect the soil and increase food production. Yields are estimated to rise by between 50-100% using this approach, enabling farmers to have enough food for themselves and their families as well as a surplus to sell at local markets.
As to how the scheme works in practice, farmers sign up to it through their local village store, which act as a payment point. On doing so, they select which kinds of seed, fertilizer and training they would like for the following season.
When they have money to spare, the farmers can then buy a scratch card worth $1, $2 or $5. After scratching off the back and finding the secret code, they send it via a text message to the myAgro platform, which validates it and allocates the value of the card to their account. The farmer then receives an immediate SMS response confirming both payment and their new account balance.
While the NGO, which currently employs 400 staff, helped 34,000 farmers in both Mali and Senegal in 2017, the aim is to expand into Tanzania next year with the support of international development agency the Aga Khan Foundation, which should enable it to address the needs of 50,000 people. But the overall goal is to work with a million farmers by 2025 and help them to double their income.
To this end, the organisation has also started selling Chinese-manufactured tools to them, which it estimates can save two thirds of the time it takes to plant manually. It is also testing rental services such as those provided by the hello tractor app, which enables farmers to rent expensive equipment that would otherwise be out of reach. Ratnayake says:
myAgro is adding new services to help farmers solve their labour challenges – planting with modern techniques is more labour-intensive and so myAgro is testing various machine services for farmers to rent or purchase to make it easier and cheaper to plant.
The third and final organisation on the ‘Tech for Social Good’ list for this series is the Solstice Initiative, which like myAgro has been awarded a Social Impact Fellowship from consultancy network, GLG.