How fintech is helping small-scale farmers become profitable producers

This is a superbly relevant short video on development economics from the Financial Times as part of their series on the food revolution.

Raising yields from smallholder farmers is crucial to the transition process from subsistence to commercial farming and in reducing extreme poverty. Millions of small-holders have limited access to essential financial services such as insurance and the basic finance needed to purchase seeds, fertilisers and small units of capital.

This FT video focuses on the Nairobi-based Apollo app which is gaining traction among terns of thousands of farmers in rural Kenya. Apollo uses M-Pesa mobile money, machine learning and satellite data to track land ownership and crop yields.

Apollo Agriculture generates revenues on the sale of farm products and earning margins on financing.

The founder studied engineering at Stanford before working with the Climate Corporation. A great example to follow of the latency of a country's diaspora in helping to drive improvements in basic human development outcomes.

More here