Business

Problem
Millions of smallholder farmers across sub-Saharan Africa produce 80% of the continent's food while remaining entirely invisible to financial systems. They have no credit history, collateral, or verifiable record. The result is a USD 65 billion financing gap, with less than 5% of smallholders having access to formal credit, and 97% left uninsured. Farmers have no buffer when climate shocks hit, forcing them to sell livestock, pull their children out of school, or abandon their land. Meanwhile, climate volatility is accelerating, making extreme weather events and crop failure more frequent, and the need for insurance and credit more urgent. While banks and insurers aren't unwilling to finance smallholders, they have no data to work with.

Solution

eSusFarm provides parametric insurance and a compounding farmer core to unlock credit for smallholder farmers across sub-Saharan Africa, all through basic mobile phones via USSD. Their technology platform enables telco partners such as MTN to access a verified, scored farmer population, while eSusFarm deploys its agent network to geofence farms and test soils. Farmers register in seven minutes by dialling a code, after which the platform generates daily, satellite-derived, personalised weather information and agronomic advisories, and a portable financial identity and risk score that strengthens every season as farmers return agronomic data to the platform.

Impact

By providing parametric insurance to uninsured smallholder farmers, eSusFarm protects them against the loss of income and nutrition sources for the household. By building financial identity and risk score for unbanked smallholder farmers, eSusFarm unlocks access to formal and affordable input credit and financial incentives, helping them access much-needed inputs on the eSusFarm marketplace. Especially coupled with personalised agronomic advisory from eSusFarm, inputs such as drought-resilient, high-yielding seed varieties, hermetic bags for harvest storage, and irrigation equipment can help boost yields, reduce losses, and improve farm household income, climate resilience and food security.