LEAF to enable Rs 500 crore credit to marginalised tribal farmers to tide over Covid-19 crisis

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LEAF to enable Rs 500 crore credit to marginalised tribal farmers to tide over Covid-19 crisis

Our Bureau, Mumbai

Lawrencedale Agro Processing India (LEAF), India’s premier integrated agriculture services major, is bringing in Rs 500 crore worth of organised cost-effective credit to marginalised small land-hold and tribal farmers to overcome the Covid-19 crisis.

The company is aligning with new-age financial technology non-banking financial companies (NBFC) to funnel in the much-needed organised credit for the marginalised farmers.

The enablement of the organised credit comes at a crucial juncture when millions of marginalised farmers, who try to earn their livelihoods with hardly an acre of land, are struggling to sustain the farming cycles due to multiple challenges arising as a result of the pandemic.

Palat Vijayaraghavan, founder and CEO, LEAF, said, “Marginalised farmers are struggling to harvest the standing crops due to shortage of farming labour. Compounding this is the restricted functioning of wholesale markets, due to which farmers are fearing the worst. We are addressing these challenges by organising farming labour with all safety protocols and liquidating the aggregated harvest, on behalf of farmers, in large wholesale markets.”

The aspect of organised credit is playing a crucial role in the agrarian ecosystem and is being dovetailed at a time when cropping cycles has to be sustained. Marginalised farmers in remote locations of Western and Eastern Ghats in South India do not have easy access to many of organised support.

“After the harvest is liquidated, the farm has to be tended to and prepared for next crop. Access to farming inputs – enriching soil, seeds, crop protection and crop nutrition are hard to come by during these times. We are ensuring that these farming inputs, through organised credit, is reaching the farmgates across remote regions of Western and Eastern Ghats,” added Vijayaraghavan.

The company, which extensively works across extreme remote and hostile agriculture locations bringing about significant improvements in the livelihoods of marginal land-hold farmers, will be adopting a hub-and spoke model in credit disbursement.

“We are setting up 25 LEAF Farmer Service Centre across locations which has large concentration of tribal and marginalised farmers. These Centres managed by LEAF’s team of professional agronomists will work with the farmers in the entire life-cycle of the harvest and ensure that their efforts are getting better results,” added Vijayaraghavan.

The company is also deploying impactful technology at these Farmer Service Centres to bring in significant transparency to the farming ecosystem. The platform a common digital infrastructure will connect farmers with buyers, inputs suppliers, banks and financial institutions and Farmer Producer Organisations. The platform digitises agriculture marketplaces, payments, workflows and provides farmers an easy and secure way to buy, sell and receive payments for their produce. The platform will enable powerful solutions for the agriculture sector by building innovative credit products on farmer income and expense data.

“There is pain for the farmer in each and every step. The digital platform which we are enabling will strive to take out the pain in all the steps for the farmers. With our active on ground Farmer Support Centres, the farmers can grow the best of the produce, sell the harvest through our centres, easily realise best value for their harvest and access payments for their harvest through advanced technology solutions which will ease how the farmers experience finance,” said Vijayaraghavan.

These innovations by the company will ease this pain for the farmers in the hinterland and will enable sustainable village banking through digitisation of farmer’s incomes, and providing easy liquidity through cash-in / cash-out at Farmer Producer Organisation offices and at various small shops in villages.

“Even after the buyers transfer the proceeds to the farmers bank account after much delay, the access to a bank branch or an ATM is tough in many situations. Imagine with just a smart-card, the farmer can cash out at the local kirana store or at a Panchayat office. This will empower farmers to focus more on growing crops in a much better way while the problems in accessing money will be simplified,” concluded Vijayaraghavan.

The company will deepen its scope of work and will engage with various stakeholders with a roadmap to positively impact 3 million marginalised and tribal farmers.

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