ENSIBUUKO: BRIDGING TECH AND AG-FINANCE

 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays an important role in enhancing the impact and performance of agricultural production and poverty alleviation by increasing productivity through new credit and financial services.

Ensibuuko, a mobile and web application that helps farmers in accessing financial services is making a huge impact in Uganda as it has enabled saving and credit associations (and other financing organisations) to handle savings and make loans to smallholder farmers.

Ensibuuko was conceived over a cup of coffee between two friends in 2010. Mr. Gerald Otim and Mr. Opio Obwangamoi David shared a similar background as they were both raised in peasant farming communities.

Mr. Otim had attempted to establish a microfinance organisation for farmers, but with a lot of frustration. It is from these frustrations that he and Mr David were moved to establish Ensibuuko.

The solution is targeting farmer’s welfare through Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCOs). It allows farmers to register and apply for loans using SMS, save, receive and repay loans using mobile money.

The result is simpler, safer and flexible as it allows more control over one’s savings and credit for farmers, lowers cost and gives greater transparency for savings and credit groups.

Starting Ensibuuko was not easy for the two friends as accessing capital to kick start their innovation proved challenging. Their turning point came in August 2011, when they met an agronomist at the Ministry of Agriculture-Buganda Kingdom who helped them to kick start their innovation.

In 2013, they were named the overall winner of ICT4Ag Hackathon in Kigali, Rwanda. Fast forward to July 14, 2014 and the two are slated to be part of the Plug and Play Day and as highly anticipated speakers during Fin4Ag Conference: revolutionising finance for agri-value chains at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies in Nairobi from 14 – 18 July 2014.

Ensibuuko has leveraged mobile and web technologies to help smallholder farmers access agriculture information and markets so as to attract young people into farming. It has also been addressing lack of finance among smallholder farmers as their productivity has been stifled due to a lack of financial access. Currently it is estimated that smallholder farmers make up more or less 80% of Uganda’s population.

Innovation provides some real opportunities for transforming agriculture and putting farmers in the driving seat. Mobile and web technologies are increasingly becoming important for the adaptation of new opportunities in value chain financing. Ensibuuko has managed to revolutionise this as it has managed to expand the coverage of financial services to smallholder farmers in 35 sub-counties in Uganda.

Ensibuuko recognises the fact that most smallholder farmers are unbanked and deemed lacking of creditworthiness. The innovative system also generates a history of how individual farmers have been saving with their SACCO. This helps the SACCO to know how active the members have been while the farmer can also track his transactions.

This application also enables SACCOs to provide financial services to, hard to reach areas, improve accountability and transparency in the handling of financial transactions by SACCOs and makes it possible for Micro Finance Institutions (MFI) to provide group loans. Through a partnership with Kiva, they have managed to raise $20,000 to provide affordable mobile loans to farmers.

Other value added services Ensibuuko provides include, market information and access to the market for smallholder farmers. Because of the impact the company is making through its service, they have been approached by various institutions such as MFIs for possible partnership and replication of their service.

Currently, Ensibuuko has 1,000 farmers who have registered in the system. Most farmers appreciate the fact that it is convenient as it reduces travelling cost to SACCO’s as all transactions can be done using mobile phones!

See also:

• Integrating SMS and mobile money with Ensibuuko

Blogpost by Simon Wandila and Bob Aston, Social Reporters for the Fin4Ag Conference.

This article was originally posted on https://blogs.cta.int/2014/07/15/ensibuuko-bridging-tech-ag-finance/index.html

The content belongs to the original publisher.

CTA BROADENS SUPPORT FOR YOUNG AGRI-PRENEURS THROUGH AGRIHACK INITIATIVE

 

The Challenge of weak integration of ICT in agriculture

Technology plays a great role in enhancing advisory services, knowledge exchange, data acquisition and access to market and trade in the agricultural sector. As mobile communications technology widens and subscriptions increase at a high rate, the opportunity to leverage the role of ICTs in agriculture for improved and sustainable agricultural development becomes more possible/obvious.

However, despite the tremendous possibilities that exist, technological innovations and applications are still weakly harnessed for agricultural development.

Stakeholders at the national and international levels are calling for increased actions in these areas, as articulated during the 2013 ICT4Ag Conference organised by CTA and its partners.

Youth participation is critical for the development and dispersion of those innovations.

Exploring youth entrepreneurship opportunities through ICT4Ag

According to ITU (2014) in its report entitled “Digital opportunities: Innovative ICT solutions for youth employment”, agriculture is one of the areas in which ICT applications will be increasingly providing opportunities for youths. Youths are exploring and initiating promising ICT enterprises. However, in their efforts they encounter various challenges hindering their growth.

These challenges include better understanding of the needs and issues of agricultural stakeholders, better understanding of agricultural opportunities for ICT service providers, lack of support to develop proofs of concept or launch new applications, lack of support to test and upscale new applications, weak knowledge of viable ICT4Ag business models, among others. One challenge that cannot be overlooked is the absence of a favourable multi-stakeholder ecosystem in most countries and regions that would support the development of ICT4Ag services.

AgriHack initiative conceived to improve support to young entrepreneurs

In the efforts to provide alternative solutions to these challenges, the AgriHack initiative has been conceived. AgriHack is an initiative within the framework of the ICT4Ag activities and youth activities of CTA. Youth activities at CTA are implemented in the framework of the new CTA Youth Strategy. The strategy is facilitated by the ARDYIS project.

This initiative dates back from the AgriHack Championship, a pilot hackathon focused on the agricultural sector. The finals of the regional tournament took place parallel to the ICT4Ag Conference in Kigali, Rwanda in2013. The objectives of these activities were to showcase the potentials of ICT applications in agriculture at the ICT4Ag conference; and to support the development of ICT innovations and entrepreneurship in agriculture by young people. Since, the overwhelming response the AgriHack Championship has been receiving, CTA has upped their support and is exploring the replication of the AgriHack Championship activities to other regions in ACP countries.

AgriHack learning and follow up workshop at Fin4Ag

Another bold step CTA has taken is to host the AgriHack initiative workshop prior to the international conference Fin4Ag:Revolutionising finance for agricultural value chains, to discuss the results and follow up of previous activities on 11-12 July, 2014, in Nairobi.

It is also important to note that during the Fin4Ag Conference, best applications developed by the young entrepreneurs in previous AgriHack initiative activities will be showcased. The workshop will be attended by various key stakeholders from many ACP countries, such as representatives of ICT and agriculture ministries, representatives of the ICT hubs, teams of young entrepreneurs and mentors involved, as well as other development stakeholders, and those who contributed to the conception of the activity.

The next AgriHack will be held in the Caribbean this year, 2014, and a planning meeting is scheduled for Jamaica, in July 2014.

Consolidating efforts to increase and sustain impact

Following the success and lessons learned from the pilot AgriHack Championship, the AgriHack initiative seeks to replicate these activities. Once fully deployed, it is expected that the initiative will favour the expansion of a culture of entrepreneurship on ICT4Ag among ACP youths, give birth to new companies and innovative applications, consolidate the durability of existing businesses, contribute in portraying a better image of agriculture to young people, improve agricultural productivity and ultimately contribute to food security.

In this vein, youths, start-up incubators and investors, ICT hubs in various regions in ACP countries and various stakeholders are called to consolidate their efforts to support the AgriHack initiative in fulfilling this promising model!

Blogpost by Simon Wandila, Social Reporter for the Fin4Ag Conference

This article was originally posted on https://blogs.cta.int/2014/07/11/cta-broadens-support-young-agri-preneurs-agrihack-initiative/index.html

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AGRIHACK INITIATIVE GROOMS ICT4AG YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS

 Young entrepreneurs are already turning the wheels of the agricultural revolution. They are driving the paradigm shift in facilitating access and communication of agricultural information and knowledge.

They are not just creating a buzz in ICT for Agriculture (ICT4Ag) but fervently transforming the practice of agriculture with innovative ICT solutions such as web and mobile applications. With increasing interest and support from various stakeholders in empowering these young ICT4Ag entrepreneurs, the digitisation of agriculture is beating the odds, responding positively to concerns such as sustainability, nature and quality of the information provided and engagement of youth and women.

While the beginning of these initiatives was mainly inclined to the provision of information to support farmers at the production stage, the overwhelming support has so far seen the rebirth of approaches and innovations crossing the borders of provision of information for production only to as far as supporting financial transactions. Behind this success story is a great model: the AgriHack Championship Initiative.

Conceptualised by CTA in 2013, the AgriHack Championship, a model hackathon with a difference has been a learning and entrepreneurial exercise, bringing together young people interested in developing ICT solutions for agriculture. The hackathon and its accompanying activities were spread over the space of a year, with preparation and follow-up activities to support participants.

Some activities included national level competitions, which led to the selection of finalists. The finals were held during CTA’s 2013 ICT4Ag Conference. A clear roadmap was used to strengthen the AgriHack model to produce concrete results with a real impact on young entrepreneurs and small-scale producers. From mentorship to discussions and training, a range of stakeholders had put efforts together. At this event, a range of solutions hacked by young entrepreneurs emerged, and the regional winning innovations were Ensibuuko, AgriVAS and Agrinfo. Some winning innovations have thrived to be model, youth-led enterprises, providing some of the most promising ICT solutions in agriculture.

Taking part in the CTA Agrihack Championship proved to be an opportunity for David Opio and Gerald Otim to develop the Ensibuuko app and galvanise contacts with Kiva, an online crowdfunding platform to which David and his team had turned for capital. When Ensibuuko was named winner of the regional finals, the award brought the team valuable visibility and credibility.

A pilot phase signed with Kiva has enabled Ensibuuko to provide finance to 42 rural smallholder producers, mainly model rural farmers who commit to mentoring other farmers in the community. So far, the six-strong Ensibuuko team has raised more than US$15,000 (€10,800) and is well on its way to its immediate target of raising another $5,000 (€3,600). Ensibuuko is a mobile and web application that integrates automated SMS and mobile money services to enable Saving and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOSs) to handle savings and make loans to smallholder farmers.

A Kenyan ICT4Ag application showcased at the regional finals of the CTA Agrihack Championship has proved a winning idea, with commercial potential. Farmdrive, a platform that connects farmers and lenders, has attracted the interest of a Japanese investor, who was present at the hackathon, held in November 2013. He approached the Farmdrive team at the event and indicated he had found the idea interesting. Since then, he has been working with the team to perfect the App, so as to explore the feasibility of applying the same idea in Japan.

The ICT4Ag Agrihack Championship was not an end in itself, rather it was the ignition of successful innovations that would see the paradigm shift in access and communication of agricultural information and knowledge amplified, proving the initial Agrihack concept a success.

This initiative is on the right track to respond to the timely call to a rethink in ICT4Ag applications. It also tackles among others, issues such as sustainability, quality of information, access and usability by youth and women, duplication of applications, helping farmers beyond the production stage, supporting financial transactions, and tracking farmer’s data.

Following the finals of the Agrihack Championship in November 2013, the winners of the competition were incubated for 6 months by different hubs to fine-tune their products. In order to discuss the results of the hackathon and its follow-up, a learning and follow-up workshop is planned to take place on 11 – 12 July 2014 (upon invitation only) in Nairobi, Kenya.

During the Fin4Ag Conference, the best applications developed by young entrepreneurs will be showcased. Stay tuned and follow us on twitter with Hashtag #Fin4Ag14 for updates!

Blogpost by Simon Wandila, Social Reporter for the Fin4Ag Conference.

Originally posted on https://blogs.cta.int/2014/07/06/agrihack-initiative-grooms-ict4ag-young-entrepreneurs/index.html 

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