MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Kenya’s FarmDrive Nets Technical Assistance Funds from CGAP to Use Satellite Imagery to Forecast Smallholder Farmers’ Revenues

FarmDrive, a for-profit Kenyan organization seeking to reduce the risk of lending to farmers, recently received an undisclosed amount of technical assistance funding from CGAP, a US-based NGO also known as the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, to allow it to use satellite data on “planting cycles, crop yields, and trends in production to help forecast future revenues, timing of income and potential gaps in payments.”

FarmDrive plans to do this in partnership with The Impact Lab, which seeks to bring “science to the business of doing good,” and Planet, a satellite company with offices in Canada, Germany and the US. Planet markets its data as helping “solve our world’s toughest challenges and triggers industry-changing opportunities.”

Since its inception in 2014, FarmDrive has facilitated microloans totaling KES 13 million (USD 130,000) through its mobile app, which allows a farmer to present a microlender with a loan application that bundled with his or her FarmDrive credit score and an offer of weather-index insurance coverage if the loan is approved.

Written by the MicroCapital Team

Sources and Additional Resources

CGAP press release:
http://www.cgap.org/news/cgap-and-farmdrive-announce-partnership

FarmDrive:
http://farmdrive.co.ke/

Planet:
http://www.planet.com

MicroCapital Universe profile on CGAP:
https://www.microcapital.org/microfinanceuniverse/tiki-index.php?page=CGAP+%28Consultative+Group+to+Assist+the+Poor%29

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