Our research and deep sector understanding
informs our advisory and implementation work

Effectiveness & Efficiency of Business Development Services (BDS) for Agri-SMEs

A study to identify and assess the efficiency and effectiveness of business development services (BDS) tools and methodologies provided to agri-SMEs in East and West Africa.

State of the Sector: Agri-SME Finance

A new perspective on the agri-SME finance market: sizing and segmenting the market in new ways, reflecting on the rapidly accelerating imperative around climate, and identifying new priorities for action.

State of the Sector: Agri-Insurance for Smallholder Farmers

A follow up to our 2018 Protecting Growing Prosperity report, we take stock of the current state of agri-insurance for smallholder households. We also introduce new ways of thinking about the sector through deep dives, and propose a set of priority areas to guide work over the next 5 years.

Agricultural “Platforms” in a Digital Era: Defining the Landscape

We define the current landscape of agricultural Platforms, their risk and impact potential, and the path forward for supporting their growth.

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State of the Sector: Pathways to Prosperity

This State of the Sector report identifies agenda-defining priorities that the sector must address to bridge the finance gap for smallholder households and agricultural SMEs, and introduces new models for navigating an increasingly sophisticated agricultural finance market.

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Inflection Point: Unlocking growth in the era of farmer finance

Inflection Point suggests that while current activities to expand financial inclusion are not sufficient to meet smallholder demand, concerted efforts around customer centricity, progressive partnerships, and smart subsidy have the potential to change the sector’s growth trajectory to better serve the world’s smallholder farmers.

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SMEs in Food Systems: A Framework for Engagement

Our framework developed around the structure and key dynamics of food systems – focusing in particular on the role of agri-SMEs – and applied through two country studies in Colombia and Uganda to support the Argidius Foundation.

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Role of Government in Rural and Agri-Finance: Transitioning to private sector involvement

Building on our 2014 analysis of the natural stages of agricultural finance, this briefing note interrogates more deeply the transition that countries make from government-led to more bank-led agricultural finance.

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Assessment of investment funds supporting tropical forest areas and communities

Explores impact funds focused on forest-dependent communities and smallholder farmers, identifying best practices, gaps, and opportunities for investment to share with the broader impact investing community.

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The Role of Government in Developing Agricultural Finance: A look at the history of Germany, the US, and South Korea

Reflects on the role of capital markets within the context of historical agricultural sector development.

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Assessing the Cost Efficiency and Effectiveness of Business Development Services for Agri-SMEs

A summary of key findings from our analysis of BDS tools and methodologies provided to agri-SMEs in East and West Africa.

Foreign Currency Risk Management Strategies for Investment Vehicles

Our analysis for Small Foundation on available strategies for managing foreign currency risk in frontier and emerging markets is summarized in this report, which includes options at both the fund and investment level.

How Digital Agricultural Platforms Can Better Engage Rural Women

In new research with CGAP and Value for Women, we look at how digital agricultural platforms can best integrate gender-forward practices, what the major opportunity areas are for creating shared value, and how donors and investors can support these efforts.

Landscape Assessment of Agro-Industrial Parks in Uganda

Our landscape assessment in partnership with USAID’s Market Systems and Partnerships (MSP) Activity explores the primary opportunities for donors to further support the Government of Uganda’s ambitious agro-industrialization agenda, a key goal in its latest National Development Plan (NDPIII, 2020).

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Updating Our Understanding of Digital Marketplace Platforms

We discuss marketplace platform models which connect users with products or integrated products and services in this update to our 2021 Agricultural Platforms in a Digital Era report.

The Challenge of Climate Financing for Agri-SMEs

A summary of our latest research around how climate change is impacting agri-SMEs, and how capital and financial service providers can fill the significant unmet need for climate finance.

Utilizing Blended Capital to Unlock Agri-SME Finance

Examples of different approaches to subsidy that can currently be observed in the agri-SME market as a first step in more fully interrogating blended finance approaches.

Understanding How Agri-SMEs are Financed Today

A summary of how different types of capital and financial service providers are currently striving to meet demand in the agri-SME market.

A Dynamic Approach to Understanding Demand in Agri-SME Finance

A summary of our new characterization of agri-SMEs based on their growth pathways and their role in food systems. With this understanding, policymakers and practitioners can better define agri-SMEs and their finance needs.

The Current State of the Agri-SME Finance Sector

A summary of important new insights shared in our latest State of the Sector report, including new market sizing estimates across regions and a comparative analysis of existing agri-SME financing channels.

Getting ‘Smarter’ on Subsidies to Enable More Financing for Agri-SMEs

In a forthcoming report with CASA, we seek to improve the investor’s understanding of the state of agri-SME finance globally. This blog shares a preview of that research through exploring how funders can get ‘smarter’ on subsidies to enable more financing for agri-SMEs.

Understanding Rural Pathway Transitions: Insights from Kenya

Building upon the Rural Pathways Model, this report takes us one step further by introducing the Pathways Transition Framework to understand and describe what Pathway transitions look like in practice and translate these insights into action.

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The Climate Challenge: A Smallholder Pathways Deep Dive

We used our Rural Pathways Model to better understand how climate change impacts smallholder farmers, and propose a new way to think about different rural livelihood pathways in shaping the global climate response.

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Rethinking our Understanding of Agri-SMEs

Building off of current classifications of agri-SMEs, we developed a framework to comprehensively consider the role of different types of agri-SMEs in food systems and the specific types of support that would unlock their growth potential.

Digital data sharing in agriculture: Mercy Corps AgriFin case study

We examined 33 engagements between Mercy Corps’ AgriFin program and partners across four different countries to uncover lessons about the common barriers faced by data-sharing arrangements in agriculture.

How governments incentivize private sector involvement in agricultural finance

How can governments create and regulate space for the private sector in agricultural finance? Various countries have approached this challenge in different ways. By looking at different cases, we can uncover trends that might point governments in the right direction.

Strategies for supporting sustainable and climate-smart advisory services

In collaboration with the Swiss Re Foundation, we map out opportunities to deliver sustainable and effective advisory services focused on climate-smart agriculture at scale.

Understanding the transition pathways and service needs of rural youth

Anchored in the research and models presented in the Pathways to Prosperity report, this deep dive explores the specific considerations that service providers, governments and donors need to take into account when looking to support different pathway transitions for youth.

Understanding women’s rural transitions and service needs

Anchored in the research and models presented in the Pathways to Prosperity report, this deep dive explores the specific considerations that service providers and donors need to take into account when looking to support different pathway transitions for rural women.

The capital markets: An increasingly sophisticated market still grappling with the impact-return trade-off

We highlight some of the major shifts and trends that have shaped the capital market for rural service provision since the 2016 Inflection Point report, and present a new pathways-based approach to segmenting the need for capital.

Rural finance providers: A new segmentation for an expanding market

We highlight some of the major shifts and trends that have shaped the FSP market, and present a new segmentation of FSPs based on organizations’ underlying ‘Primary Goal for Service Delivery’ and ‘Service Delivery Model.’

Transition Pathways: A Dynamic View of How Rural Households Evolve

We discuss the importance of shifting away from a static view of smallholder household segments, and present a new dynamic model of ‘transition pathways’ that articulates how smallholder households and rural agri-SMEs tend to develop over time.

Building multiple markets: The case for smart digital investments

What AgTech and FinTech can learn from the microfinance experience: don’t build it yourself. This blog examines the opportunities and lessons learned from connecting financial services with technology solutions for smallholder farmers.

A global smallholder weather update: Shocks guaranteed, losses optional

Agricultural insurance is an important financial service that both protects farmers and can help improve their productivity over time. This blog revisits the findings in our earlier “Protecting Growing Prosperity” report and provides an update on some of the recent developments in agricultural insurance.

Skills for success: FSP perspectives on business development support for smallholder finance

We surveyed MFIs, commercial banks, NGOs, and social lenders to better understand the experiences of FSPs who utilize BDS. This blog shares highlights from the survey to help market participants better understand the ecosystem supporting and shaping the development of financial services for smallholders.

Protecting Growing Prosperity: Agricultural insurance in the developing world

This landscape report highlights the current status and future development of agricultural insurance for smallholder farmers.

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Big data could mean big opportunity: Why we should stay excited for data analytics in smallholder finance

This brief aims to provide a high level understanding of how data analytics is used for smallholder farmers, introduce a new framework to understand the economics of data analytic investments, and highlight key innovators in the space.

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The role of grant funding in smallholder finance

Assesses the role of grant funding in smallholder finance to understand how it can be used to unlock financing for millions of smallholders.

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Grant me clarity: Understanding donor dynamics in grant-based subsidy

Shares highlights from a review of the major donor agendas currently shaping the development of global smallholder finance via grant-based subsidy.

How to influence decision makers in agricultural finance

This brief outlines the six core principles that can help influence decision makers in each of these stakeholder groups in order to help close the smallholder financing gap and bring millions out of poverty.

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Show me the data: Using data to unlock access to finance for smallholders

Without transparent markets and reliable data, stakeholders across the value chain are unable to make smart decisions on how to improve smallholder financial solutions. We highlight gaps in data transparency and the role stakeholders can play in bringing data transparency to the next level.

What’s your impact?

The sector has come a long way in understanding impact, but there remains significant knowledge gaps when it comes to farm level impact of financial services. We identify four areas where providers, agribusinesses, and donors need to allocate resources toward improving the sector’s understanding of impact.

Understanding profitability in smallholder finance

Drawing from a review of Mastercard Foundation Rural and Agricultural Finance (RAF) partner experiences, this brief provides FSPs with evidence to guide their journey in achieving financial sustainability.

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Enabling environment and smallholder finance: A complex relationship

The relationship between the enabling environment and smallholder finance is complex, and to date, there is limited research on linkages between the two. This blog highlights early learnings from the Mastercard Foundation’s rural and agricultural finance portfolio and makes recommendations for future research to close the knowledge gap.

Agricultural technical assistance: Catching up to its potential

In 2013 we developed a first of its kind global view of the technical assistance (TA) landscape for smallholder farmers. As part of this research, we developed a typology of existing programs in the TA landscape. This blog highlights trends, spots of activity, and action steps for improving TA.

The Fund Manager Perspective: Moving the needle on inclusive agribusiness

Interrogates how different impact-oriented agribusiness funds combine public and private capital to build a more inclusive agricultural market.

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Going far, together: Breaking silos to unlock smallholder finance

Sector actors are increasingly aware that progressive partnerships are one of the most promising ways to structure finance and financial services for smallholder farmers. As partners align on pre-competitive or symbiotic goals to develop inclusive markets, we share lessons about how best to facilitate them and make them highly productive.

Putting farmers first: Understanding what smallholders really want

One of the biggest obstacles to financing smallholder farmers has been understanding who they are and – by extension – what their needs are. A client-centered approach will allow us to close the gap between farmer need and farmer demand by offering what farmers really want.

Onward and upward: Using a systems approach to unlock smallholder finance potential

Our findings in Inflection Point shed light on a complex and interconnected ecosystem of different stakeholders. This blog discusses how the sector should navigate farmer financing demand and answer big questions on what tools we use to address it in this new landscape.

Last mile business partnerships for smallholder finance

The Rural & Agricultural Finance Learning Lab commenced an 18-month study of the partnership-building efforts of “last mile” agribusiness and ag-focused technology firms. This brief summarizes early insights for financial institutions or value chain actors looking to serve smallholders, and their investors and funders.

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The business case for digitally-enabled smallholder finance

New digital technologies and innovative business models are making it possible to provide credit to smallholder farmers (SHFs) in Africa. This blog looks at where and how innovations in digital technology promise to enable financial service providers (FSPs) to serve smallholders at scale.

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Financial Inclusion Fit to Size: Customizing digital credit for smallholder farmers in Tanzania

Explores the causes of low uptake in digital credit for smallholders to better understand how we can develop concrete product solutions to jump-start adoption of digital credit products by them.

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The Climate Conundrum: Financing smallholder productivity and resilience in the age of climate change

Explores the latest practices from the climate finance community and the agricultural finance community to understand how new combined models can boost returns and attract new investors.

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Unlocking Local Currency Lending: Foreign exchange risk in agricultural finance

This briefing note suggests that, if used correctly, philanthropic investment can play an influential role in mitigating foreign exchange risk.

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The Rise of the Data Scientist: How big data and data science are changing smallholder finance

Explores how innovative lenders are using new data sources and analytics to assess the creditworthiness of borrowers.

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Value Chain Financing: How agro-enterprises can serve as alternate aggregation points for delivering financial services to smallholder farmers

Explores three channels through which value chain financing models can be delivered, and identifies how these models can group “enablers” to best serve smallholders.

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