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Repository of research about existing players providing funding support to FPOs for collective assets. |
Who is funding FPOs for purchase of collective assets?
Non-banking financial institutions
Avanti Finance - 100% digital platform. It provides a white label service to finance providers to collect data, co-create products, and to facilitate transactions. (loan/credit)
They worked with SEWA in Bihar to create a credit product that included granularity in its purpose, such as “starting a vegetable stall.”
They worked with Ekgaon in Madhya Pradesh to create a credit product for ag financing for individual farmers or working capital loan for FPOs. Ekgaon developed community-based aggregators to start value addition.
Lendingkart - non-banking financial company provided no collateral loans for individuals, MSMEs/SMEs, and loan products for women. (loans)
Women’s World Banking found that Lendingkart’s AI credit model does not exhibit gender bias for loan approval, terms, or repayment rates.
MSME / SME loans can be used for operations (buying plant and machinery or opening at a new location), or for working capital and general cash flow. No mention of FPO as MSME/SME.
Maanaveetaya - Lends to microfinance institutions and development projects, with extensive guardrails regarding sustainability and inclusion.
They finance cooperatives and producer orgs (loans)
Criteria include benefit to disadvantaged people, economically viable project with appropriate management & leadership, contribute to the advancement of the community, preference to women beneficiaries who can participate in decision-making, ecological parameters
Non-banking hybrid institution (lender+ for lack of a better term)
Sammunati - Provides collective loans, aggregation, market linkages, and advisory services to farmer groups. (loans, infrastructure loans, and other services)
Supports FPOs in sourcing bulk inputs + loans for FPOs to aggregate in bulk.
Catalytic infrastructure loan for FPOs to invest in warehouse machinery, equipment, processing units, etc.
FPOnEXT product includes pre-sanctioned loans, assessment via grading tools, and access to crop and weather alerts, market prices and call center. Plus tech knowledge via agri universities + KVKs.
Government lenders / Agribanks
NABARD + Agricultural and Rural Development Banks (ARDBs) - government lending institutions (loans, grants)
FPO support via Producer Organization Development Fund: loan-linked grant for promotion, capacity building & market interventions, and grant assistance
Social Investing
PlusPlus from Solidaridad (refer to in-depth notes from Ashu Plus Plus) - crowdfunding via individual investors to specific ag projects. 400+ investors have invested 540,000 Euro) (loans)
The projects are agricultural in nature and involve loans to procure equipment (pumps, tractors, etc.), access to assets (seeds, inputs), or increase production (buy more raw goods from farmers).
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Collective asset comes up a lot in the literature related to Chinese policy
(Just some basic research….)
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Recipients include coops and small businesses.
GiveDirectly - Crowdfunding via individual investors to a village at a time that is in poverty. Unlike PlusPlus or Kiva, individual investor cannot choose loan recipient as to prevent biases. Since 2009, delivered $550M+ in cash directly to 1.25 million families living in poverty. Operations in Kenya, Rwanda, Liberia, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, DRC, Uganda, the United States, and Yemen. (loans)
Kiva - Crowdfunding via individual investors. Loan, not donation. 77 counties, 1.9M lenders and over $1.6B in loans given. (loans)
Ag loans focus on assets for individual farmers (buy cattle, feed, etc.). Some loans are to small groups (example: $3000 USD to a group in Senegal to support buy/sell cattle).
No India loans made.
Rang De - P2P lending platform with mission to provide low cost/affordable credit. Funded by angel investors. Not a crowdfunder. Non-banking financial company. (loans)
90% of loan recipients are women. Loan recipients are entrepreneurs & farmers.
Investors can invest in funds (example: Akshayakalpa Fund to support an organic dairy farm enterprise.
EthicHub - Spanish crowdlending social enterprise that connects small farmers with financing needed to work their land and sell their crops. (loans)
Currently in 3 countries (Mexico, Brazil, Honduras) and have supported 21 communities
Recipients are organizations (cooperatives, community groups)
Big lenders campaign includes lending on high return projects & investment in specialty coffee
Investors can invest in the Ethix Token - buy protection from investment and also governance decision role in EthicHub
Research on collective assets
FAO case study on SEWA notes that they are support women organizations access productive assets and self-manage their organizations (committees, groups, cooperatives). SEWA builds women’s capacity and facilitates capital formation through asset ownership and access to financial services (savings, insurance, credit). Social and productive assets (seeds, fertilizer, land, finance, equipment) reduce vulnerability to shocks (adds resilience).
Tamil Nadu case study organic farming = by the Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems defines assets are:
Social assets = relationships with community, gov’t, etc.
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Natural assets = water, land, biodiversity, etc.
IFPRO study on Gender, Assets, and Agricultural Development Programs (by my girl Ruth Meinzen-Dick from IFPRI et al, but I read her work in graduate school and find her to be amazing) = defines assets are listed below and also benefits of productive assets for women:
Access to, control over, and ownership of assets are critical components of wellbeing (Sherraden 1991; Carter and Barrett 2006). Productive assets can generate products or services that can be consumed or sold to generate income. Assets are also stores of wealth that can increase (or decrease) in value. Assets can act as collateral and facilitate access to credit and financial services as well as increase social status. Flexibility of assets to serve multiple functions provides both security through emergencies and opportunities in periods of growth (Deere and Doss 2006). In their study of “voices of the poor,” Narayan et al. (2000: 5) found that “the poor rarely speak of income, but focus instead on managing assets—physical, human, social and environmental—as a way to cope with their vulnerability.” Access to, control over, and ownership of assets including land and livestock, homes and equipment, and other resources enable people to create stable and productive lives. Increasing the nexus of control over assets also potentially enables more permanent pathways out of poverty compared to measures that aim to increase incomes or consumption alone.
These different forms of asset holdings have been categorized as (for our purposes, those in red):
natural resource capital: land, water, trees, genetic resources, soil fertility
physical capital: agricultural and business equipment, houses, consumer durables, vehicles and transportation, water supply and sanitation facilities, and communications infrastructure
human capital: education, skills, knowledge, health, nutrition; these are embodied in the labor of individuals
financial capital: savings, credit, and inflows (state transfers and remittances)
social capital: membership in organizations and groups, social and professional networks
political capital: citizenship, enfranchisement, and effective participation in governance.2
Collective approaches not a panacea; need to pay attention to factors affecting collective action when group-based approaches are used.
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Scope:
Do collective assets work or not? Is it true that capital towards collective assets is actually effective? (without the issue of commons)
What should be collective assets? (income generating be collective assets?)
If collective assets, then what kind of collective assets actually work? (e.g., ALC said retail outlets) - can we develop a list of types of collective assets
How are these investments packaged?
Who are the players that actually provide these finds of funding? (e.g., give directly? KIVA? Technoserve? USAID? Apparently IRRI, CIMMYT has done stuff like this, happy seeder work?)
What have we learned from their experience?
Notes to self:
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