Innovation can help direct-to-farmer finance providers better serve farmers by addressing the challenges associated with direct-to-farmer lending.
Existing challenges – such as lending risks and service delivery – are exacerbated at scale; investing in innovation can help direct-to-farmer finance providers scale up to more quickly and effectively meet the vast global demand for smallholder finance.
Through a collaborative research, design, and ideation process involving farmers, donors, finance providers, and more, Dalberg and the Initiative for Smallholder Finance has identified five opportunities for direct-to-farmer finance innovation.
Each of the innovation spaces below suggests compelling new ways that direct-to-farmer finance providers can build off current experimentation in the sector to better serve smallholder farmers.
This playbook introduces each innovation opportunity, provides a snapshot of current experimentation underway, and suggests concrete examples of new product, service, and strategy ideas.
Read our related blog: Direct-to-Farmer Finance: Business Models for Serving the Hardest-to-Reach Smallholders.