Group Input Loan Facility
These services include improved seed, fertilizer, post-harvest materials such as storage bags and tarpaulins, agriculture insurance delivered through a microloan product provided in partnership with Microfinance Institutions (MFIs).
The product is distributed through a network of commission-based village agents. The agent conducts an initial farmer group assessment to ensure they profile groups that meet our basic criteria (the group must have been in existence for at least a year above, must be registered at least at the sub-county, the group should have saved at least 3,000,000 in their last saving cycle – usually a year, have a constitution, etc.).
The loan is an unsecured (no collateral needed) group loan that relies on the group’s social capital.
Value Proposition
- For farmers: we provide access to critically needed agricultural services: improved seed, fertilizer, insurance all provided as one product through affordable credit
- Bundling credit with these services saves farmers the complexities of agriculture financing that are hard to navigate for smallholder farmers that require very low amounts of credit
- Bundling agriculture insurance with seed, fertilizer, credit and market builds farmers’ confidence to invest more in improved agriculture technologies
- For seed companies: we create demand for seed companies by aggregating very low quantities from many smallholder farmers through a network of agents
- For youth: we create decent self-employment opportunities for rural populations especially the youth
- For MFIs: we create a market for their loan products but also reduce the risk associated with agriculture lending by bundling agriculture insurance with credit.
- For insurance companies: we create a market for agriculture insurance by bundling it with seed, fertilizer, and credit. This would be otherwise hard to sell if sold independently
- For off-takers: access to quality grain every season as the source of inputs for production is assured.
Other Services
Our extension service heavily relies on partnerships with existing actors in the agricultural extension ecosystem. We integrate within their traditional extension to improve their efficiency and effectiveness
Available weather information sources usually provide data likely from a station that’s far away, rendering the data useless for local decision making.
AIC is a consortium of insurance companies providing subsidized agriculture insurance under the Uganda Agricultural Insurance Scheme (UAIS) a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement with Uganda Insurers Association (UIA) and Government of Uganda.
Other Services
Our Village Agent Model follows a holistic approach – so it provides a variety of services such as inputs acquisitions, agricultural finance, production and marketing.
The platform uses our mobile application for data collection and is purposely built to improve the effectiveness, timeliness, and accuracy of data collection from rural areas where internet connectivity may not be reliable.