MasterCard partners with LEAF to expand financial inclusion and increase income for more than 1 million farmers. The launch of LFN is an extension of Mastercard Farm Pass, a pilot program launched in Andhra Pradesh in 2018 . Farm Pass is a key component of Community Pass, a shared, interoperable digital infrastructure for rural people to enable access to critical services and reduce costs. Today FarmPass supports over 600,000 farmers across India and East Africa, helping many farmers increase income by 25-50 percent.
After an intensive two-year pilot in Andhra Pradesh, the partnership aims to contribute to bringing about financial inclusion in the farming community across South India and doubling their income.
Launched in early 2021, LFN now
serves over 110,000 farmers and 180 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs)
.
To improve financial access and inclusion for over one million farmers in India , Mastercard today announced a partnership with India’s Lawrence Dale Agro Processing India (LEAF) to launch LEAF Farmer Network (LFN), a premier agricultural value chain enabler.To address the many challenges of transparency
in India’s rural ecosystem , The platform will transform the lives of Indian farmers by leveraging technology through human intervention .
LFN will empower farmers across Andhra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu by digitizing harvest data, improving access to markets, providing expertise on better crops and, importantly, bringing more transparency by connecting directly with buyers. This will not only build resilience among the farming community, but also support the government’s ‘Atmanirbar Bharat’ initiative. It also supports foresight.
Small farmers, who account for more than 80% of India’s agricultural economy
, are often at the mercy of severe opacity and are perpetually dependent on middlemen. Whether it’s getting quality agricultural produce, getting optimal harvest value or making payments using formal credit channels, Farmers face challenges at every step.
Agricultural ecosystems suffer from a lack of transparent access to actionable information. Digitization addresses this challenge by integrating a virtuous cycle between farmers and markets, and providing better access to information. We are delighted to partner with Mastercard to continue our multi-year mission of bringing positive change to the livelihoods of marginalized farmers,” said Balad Vijayaraghavan, Founder and CEO of LEAF.
LFN will bring seamless access to good quality products,
enable price negotiation with complete transparency and manage end to end transportation with quality control. The entire process is managed by farmers with the support of LFN agents.
LFN’s core is digitizing the produce procurement process. It is a high-touch model through a dedicated on-land farmer advisory and change management team. It is a rural connected, secure phone operated and internet agnostic technology powered by MasterCard,” explained LEAF’s Vijayaraghavan.
LFN connects buyers, agricultural inputs, suppliers, agtechs and banks with FPOs/farmers by
digitizing markets, payments, workflows and farmer transaction history to create a commercially sustainable ecosystem with equitable business transfer mechanisms. The initiative will help farmers through comprehensive training and capacity building through the entire life cycle of harvesting, including post-harvest management to reduce wastage.
MasterCard has long been committed to connecting individuals and small businesses to the digital economy , ultimately supporting them to reach their full potential. We leverage the full breadth of the company’s resources – people, data insights, technology and philanthropy –to create solutions for sustainable, inclusive growth. The LEAF Farmer Network is another step in this direction.
It will leverage the power of digital technologies to bring together key stakeholders across the agricultural value chain and ensure farmers have direct access to knowledge, skills and markets . Together with LEAF, Mastercard is pleased that this initiative will have a tangible positive impact on farmers’ incomes and support the Government of India’s goal of doubling farmers’ incomes over the next two years.” said
Nikhil Sawhney, Head of South Asia, MasterCard. Banks are struggling to effectively serve the rural ecosystem. Because income is mostly paid in cash, the economy is largely cash-based,
leading to low account balances and high service costs for banks. Additionally, most
farmers do not have a proper credit history and find it difficult to access formal financial services
.
Enabling digital payments for farmers through LFN
will enable active account usage for farmers. Through this platform, farmers
will receive payments through cards designed for offline rural use, providing digital cash flow, instead of going to their bank accounts or their bank branches or business agents in nearby towns.
This will ultimately help farmers save more money and
lure them away from unofficial lenders. Financial inclusion also acts as a positive reinforcement for farmers to use formal means of payment
, which builds their credit profile and makes them eligible for loans from financial institutions. Mastercard SVP, Sales and Market Development, H&d Ricardo Pareja said, “Globally, Mastercard’s commitment to financial inclusion and inclusive growth has never been stronger. In India, we have made significant strides towards this goal since piloting the Farmer Network two years ago, and we are pleased to see over 110,000 farmers and 180 FPOs benefiting today.
Through this partnership with LEAF, we hope to further simplify the complexities and challenges faced by small and marginal farmers. Mastercard’s vision is to support 10 million farmers by adopting digital technologies and helping them become part of the formal economy. The partnership will provide 360-degree intervention and improve transparency in agricultural trade, while ensuring that value is retained within the ecosystem.” said as
