 Hello everyone. My name is Emily Pollack and I'm a researcher at the IAED. Great that so many people could join us today, especially under the current global circumstances and I'm sure many people are attending from less than usual situations. Some people may have signed up prior to changes that have taken place but great that many people have managed to join. We will be recording this and we'll be putting out a note afterwards on the presentations and discussion. But first I'd like to welcome you all to this fourth webinar in a series that we're running. This is a series on approaches to empowering producers in commercial agriculture. It's a series supported by a four-year project led by IAED but in collaboration with partners in Nepal and Malawi and is financially supported by the UK DFID under the commercial agriculture for small holders and agribusiness program or CASA. So welcome everyone. A key part of this endeavor is gathering evidence from around the world and testing approaches on how producers in challenging situations are exercising agency, are finding sources of empowerment to address challenges in their value chain relations, in their market relations. So for example we're gathering experiences, insights into different approaches to addressing information and power symmetries, approaches that support producers to be in the driving seat or at least to be engaging and interacting with public and private sector actors from a position of strength. So in light of that as the background we're very pleased to be hosting today a group of panelists who are going to share their experiences of the e-granary platform that is aiming to serve East African farmers and you'll hear hear about that directly from the speakers. e-granary was inspired by a similar platform in India. It was established to create strong and reliable market linkages as well as key services in one space, one package and a model that stays in that through a model that stays in the hands of producer organizations to some extent. So I won't say any more on e-granary. My understanding is still in relatively early days but have come a long way and have many lessons that have been learned and lessons to share and we felt that this warranted sharing this experience more widely. I'm sure those involved directly would also benefit sharing and exchanging with others. So we'd like to bring you this webinar in the spirit very much of mutual exchange and learning on a global scale about what might work well, what can work well, what can we do more of, what can we do differently, how do we overcome some of the really challenging barriers and exploit new opportunities in market systems from the perspective of producers. So without further ado I'd like to introduce our panel who will take you through the key components, the progress to dates, the challenges and the lessons for others. Once the panelists have shared with us their perspectives and their experiences we'll have a Q&A discussion and this discussion session and for that we welcome comments and questions. I believe in the Q&A box and IAD on our side will manage those directing them to the panelists in turn as relevant and perhaps we can start with mainly questions and comments in response to what we've heard and then we can move on to more general sharing and relevant experiences and we very much encourage that. So even if it's in this short window that we have together, flagging things for other people to explore following the webinar and we can stay connected through other means. So please do use that opportunity to really exchange. So the speakers we have firstly Steven Maturi will give us an overview presentation. Steven is the Executive Director of the East African Farmers Federation. He's also CEO of eGranery. The EAFF is a regional network of farmer, national farmer unions, federations and cooperatives in 10 countries and he'll tell you more about eGranery. Following that overview from Steven we'll hear from three panelists who are connected to the platform in some way and hear comments from them from their perspectives. Firstly we'll hear from Daniel Nyaga who is a farmer in Kenya who's been interacting with the platform in Kenya and then Giles Lewis who is a grain and oil seed trader in East Africa at ETG which is a leading integrated agricultural supply chain group with operating entities across 40 countries covering procurement, warehousing, processing and or manufacturing and finished of finished goods and also in transporting and distributing products. And then we'll move to Caroline, Caroline Karauki who is a project manager at Vision Fund Kenya. Vision Fund is a microfinance institution that aims to offer effective credit as well as economic empowerment through business support for rural communities and we'll hear from Caroline how Vision Fund has been involved and engaged with eGranery. So we're very honored to have these speakers join us and bring their experiences together in this session particularly in turbulent times. We appreciate people being able to make time and be available when there's a lot of changes happening and we look forward to hearing their perspectives. So I'll hand over now, I can see this presentation is ready, hand over now to Steven. Yeah so my name is Steven Mosher, I'm the Chief Executive Officer and I'll run you through a couple of slides that we've prepared for this particular engagement and next is a context, content of my presentations. Next slide. Yeah so why are we talking about digitization or digitizing agriculture? One of the major challenges they have in Africa is that agriculture is so fragmented and fragmentation lies in between farmers, in between the organizations and along the valley chain and it's only through a virtual platform that you can actually be able to play together all these activities and that's what we've actually done with our eGranery where we're able to aggregate farmers for input markets, output markets and services and here we include finance, mechanization and extension. Next next. So agriculture is faced by many many challenges and we thought these two actually stood out, one that there's low collective action by farmers and two that there's lack of data on farming and under the issues of collective action, due to that weakness, a lot of farmers have challenges in jointly marketing, jointly procuring of course due to fragmentation, the challenge of access or provision of services is a challenge to actually have effective and efficient technology uptake. That again brings challenges of building strong partnerships and of course value addition. With respect to lack of data, these are major challenges because it affects both policy makers as well as investors and we feel that due to that challenge we, Africa's lagging behind in terms of attracting innovative investments in finance and value addition in advisory services and that has an impact on policy next. When we ventured on building the eGranery, we looked at the typical profile of a farmer and one thing about Kenya where we started is that one there's massive mobile penetration. Most of the farmers are on mobile money. I think you know about M-Pesa which is globally known. Most of the adult population are actually farmers and about 60% of farmers are actually in corporatives of self-help groups. So we tried to look at how we would address four major issues which they actually faced. One was markets in terms of reliability and consistency, finance and insurance in terms of inclusivity. Resources were challenges in terms of access to certified inputs, properly pricing labor as well as appropriate equipment and of course was a big challenge of knowledge due to the fact that a lot of knowledge asymmetry and it was a challenge in terms of delivering this through extension and otherwise. Next. So the slide before takes jump. Slide before please. Yeah, thank you. So what are we going to achieve with the eGranery? The eGranery is unique because one is led by farmers. Most of the ePath forms are not led by a farm organization and it brings together at least four services in one. So the underlying proposition on the eGranery is that the ecosystem that we build actually benefits everybody. And here, for example, if you start with a farmer, one is that the insurance of the farmer gets a price and the best we can, the best price, they're able to access certified inputs and able to work with financial institutions to tailor make financial solutions. On this aspect, farmers have to actually be formally organized and have to have at least expertise in the value chain they're actually engaging. For financial institutions, we allow them to have access to what we would call the risk farmers. And the idea is that whatever loan product or credit product we build is actually based on because we work on this every season. So there's an inclination towards it being based on income. And of course, because we're using groups, you know, there's a lot of group approach to that in terms of reducing risk. And we try to ensure that the financial product actually is bundled. So it covers the cost of inputs or covers the cost of insurance premium. And to some extent, or in the future, some businesses are all mechanization and so on. And this loan, we actually negotiate it on behalf of the farmer. With respect to the buyer, we try to ensure that they actually have access to a quality product that can actually be traceable. We actually have traceability on our system. And when it comes to pricing, we actually negotiate on these prices with and on behalf of the farmer. Next. So in building a platform, there are certain things that we observed. One, that technology is not a single bullet, especially in agriculture. And you need to build this tech on a sound and feasible business plan. There's need to invest on relationships that are non-tech, you know, for agriculture to work because of the very many moving parts and the many partnerships that you're actually building. You have to really work on partnerships within the farmers themselves, between the organizations with other actors and so on. The business model has to have a market orientation. We try to work a lot from the market end towards the farmer because they just make business sense when you're actually proposing this to the farmer. Then the idea at the end of it is that we generate data, and this data actually helps us in terms of, we do a lot of work on policy, but also it helps us in terms of negotiating better engagement with off-takers and other actors who have actually invited to the class. Next. Next. So this next slide actually shows a basic model. I know we've tried not to put a very complex one, but basically what happens is that the equally more or less aggregates everybody. So we start off with groups that are actually organized. We ensure that they actually are able then to access bulk in bulk procurement of inputs. So we are able to get a quantity discount. We are able then to tailor make extension, whether the beginning of the season or during the season. They're able to negotiate for them services, whether it's equipment leasing, whether it's a microfinance, whether it's post-harvest services, and all these has to come under contract. Like I said earlier, we use all this to actually help us in policy and we advocate along all those areas that are actually managed. Next. So currently we have about 260,000 farmers, 214,000 Kenya, 15,000 in Uganda, and over 5,000 in Rwanda dealing with all sorts of cereals and grains. We are currently reviewing our service delivery model in partnership with the Institute of Sustainable Development. I think the biggest challenge so far and I think is the biggest challenge in agriculture has always been access to finance. And I think the challenge we faced was trying to get the big banks on board, but you're lucky that Visual Fund actually agreed to work with us. And the challenge I think of the onset when it started providing this support had been the collateral value. The request was 20% from the farmers and 20% from here, that's 40% of the loan. I know with time we've been able to negotiate this based on the performance of the farmers and of course other child issues. And now it's 10% of the farmer. In Uganda, it's 14% in terms of collateral demand. The interest is also high. I know we've been dealing with 36%, but again that has been negotiated and I think my colleague Caroline is here. And that is falling to about 24%, so like I said so far, only the microfinance institutions have actually shown interest in working with us. Next. So what are the challenges? What are the other challenges that we faced? Now, we've opened up in Uganda and like I mentioned, and it's been a challenge just setting up. It took us about eight months and we needed to do regulatory studies as well as looking at competitors and what they're actually doing and many things around the studies. It took time for just setup. We had to acquire what you call the unstructured supplementary service data, USSD acquisition, which again requires it's a security issue. You have to be assessed by security apparatus of a country, of course setting up the partners and of course HR. Second thing is farmer coordination. Again, you realize within groups is a lot of heterogeneity you know so going to get the homogeneity around it so that you can actually have homogeneous data also takes a bit of time. Synchronizing partners of course create a lot of delays. Like you've seen, we have almost four or five kind of partners from inputs to services to all that and you have to synchronize all this. Issues of course of quality of product. We are having climate change challenges affecting you know us during harvest, high moisture, flotops and so on. Price fluctuations in the region we come from, there are challenges in government sets, pricing, sometimes you have market class and you really need to understand all this. Of course repayment by the farmers. I think you've seen the cost of interest is quite high, cost of money is high, but again coupled with climate change and issues of governance within the groups again that contributes to repayment defaults. Next and these I think is the second last slide. So what are the other lessons you've learned? One that I think the biggest challenge that farmers face among the other challenges is access to markets and certified input and I think we've tried to address this with our platform and you've actually seen a lot of positive response from our members. Important lessons include the mains procurement like you've heard we deal with ETG which works with many markets and it's important to understand how they do their procurement so that it informs how we plan our production. Of course climate change has been a challenge and we've been working through with the insurance partners and the credit partners to ensure that we innovate through all the seasons because the issue of group guarantee, the reason why we work with groups and that's why when we recruit the farmers we use the 28 approach. They would convince 20, they would then convince the remaining 80, bundling all services to reduce transaction costs. Over time it means if you bundle the inputs, the inputs, the other services in between the insurance then it will become cheaper for the farmer and then the importance of having farmers organized into groups because this helps in terms of partnership mobilization, the actual partners actually receive value in engaging in large groups. You help them to negotiate better terms when you're doing bulk procurement of inputs among many others. When it comes to credit, farmers are actually ready to pay back. They are actually properly priced and structured. When it comes to insurance, of course now with the challenges of climate change, farmers are demanding insurance however they actually want it to be also priced well and then the reason why we are trying to innovate a lot around bundling. I think the next one is the last one, next slide, which shows all our partners and I want to thank those who are actually in the panel, the farmer, Daniel, ETG and vision fund. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much Stephen. I'm now going to ask Caroline to unmute her microphone and share her quick remarks in relation to Stephen's presentation. Caroline, over to you. Okay, hi everyone. My name is Caroline Kariuki. I work for vision fund Kenya. Vision fund is a microfinance that is affiliated to our vision and we offer financial support to farmers and small hold, to small holder farmers and entrepreneurs. Just like Steve has said, we are in partnership with the agranary to be able to empower the small holder farmer and at this partnership what we do is that we offer financial services and we offer product called input financing. Input financing is a product where we offer certified input that is crop insurance and there is also life insurance and the reason why we have a product is so that our small holder farmers can be able to benefit from this particular product because we know that sometimes the small holder farmer, if not supported financially, they are not able to get value for their money and in Kenya many people are small holder farmers since the highest contributor to the country's GDP is through agriculture. So this product we give due to climate change we are able to cushion ourselves and that we offer crop insurance in every season. Every input financing loan we give there has to be a crop insurance and also life insurance where we protect the farmer. In case the farmer is unwell and they are hospitalized then the insurance comes on board and pays the loan for the farmer for that particular period that the client is hospitalized. Also in case a client loses a spouse or a child who is below 18 years old, insurance comes on board and supports the client with some check just to show that visual fund cares you know and also if a client when the client has this input financing loan and in case they die insurance covers the risk so we are not we don't go back to the family to ask for our fine our money. So how we do this is through group lending. So eGranary helps us to mobilize farmers through their platform and the farmers once they register with eGranary then they we register them now to vision fund Kenya we offer them trainings that is financial literacy training and eGranary also trains them on good farm practices and we do this in partnership with them and also in partnership with insurance because the organization that offers insurance on behalf of vision fund they also comes on board and trains the farmer under the advantages of having insurance and so this farmer in a group once they are trained then we give them the leeway to choose whether they want to go ahead they take the input financing loan or not and most of them really appreciate that they are able to be given this financial service from vision fund Kenya since most of these big banks they don't to bank on the smallholder farmer so vision fund has gone ahead and taken the risk of empowering this smallholder farmer back in the village in Kenya to be able to farm and this has really given us it has been able to allow the smallholder farmer to be able to get value for their money because once we give them we offer them the input financing they are able to farm bigger pieces of land than what they've been farming before they were able to access finances and this also helps them to produce more and hence there is an increase in source of income for this smallholder farmer so our product just like I've said it's a bad old product and what we are doing is that we are offering a net to end financial solution for the smallholder farmer so once e-granary mobilizes the farmer we come on board and offer financial training and after that we offer the input financing we don't give them cash we give it in kind this means we have as an input supplier who is who we pay to and then the farmer goes and collects the input from them this allows the farmer to be able to access certified certified seeds and this leads to increase of production then once the the client takes that input financing we work with the farmer from planting to harvesting and up to aggregation and of taking and we also through e-granary we've been able to find market for the smallholder farmer that is through the partnership that we have with e-granary and this has been very helpful to the smallholder farmer since most of these farmers they know how to farm but the main challenge is the getting finances to be able to do the farming and also getting market because in Kenya we find that the brokers we have brokers who wait for the crop to to to be harvested and then they go and buy from the farmer at a very lower rate but once we've gotten we've got market for this produce for our farmers then they're able to get a good price that is better than what they get from the brokers in the in the field so this has really made a big difference in terms of us being able to impact the smallholder farmer back in the village since they're able to get the finances and also get a proper market for their for their crop um so that's what a vision fund has been involved in with e-granary it's been a very helpful partnership because we as vision fund we've been able to reach more farmers than we than we did before we got into partnership with e-granary thank you very much thank you so much Caroline um I will now ask Daniel if you want to also share your quick remarks five minutes maybe you would need to unmute your microphone Daniel yes thank you very much for the contribution which has been done by Caroline and Mochili it is true that uh e-granary as uh assistance farmers very much because they have been uh they have been uh forefront because they are they are they are giving credit to our farmers and uh farm input uh plus training our farmers now my question to them is because now we have increased our productivity uh how can we how can how can we uh move forward by having this uh for your listening equipment so that we can uh for you hand our our our produce secondly I want to thank Mr. Caroline, Manda Mochilain because of the financing lighting out we have financed our groups and the farmers right now we have uh uh planting materials in our stores waiting to plant now mine is congratulating them for the work they are doing and hoping that we are moving forward so I don't have much to say but mine is congratulating them for the work they are doing to the farmers thank you very much thank you so much Daniel yes um uh Giles would you like to share your quick remarks yeah hi everyone um I work for ETG as a grain and all seed trader um so I've been heading up the relationship between ETG and uh EFF and the e-granary platform um so I was just going to give you a bit of a background perhaps on ETG and what we do um so ETG has been present for about 50 years with its foundations in Kenya now operating in over 40 countries predominantly countries in Africa but we also operate in major um agriculture markets in the US and Canada and Australia um so I ever see the East Africa grain and all seed trading books so that includes maize, soybeans and any other grains or all seeds um ETG is one of the leading fertilizer um traders on the continent and also one of the largest maize originators in Africa obviously maize being a staple food in Africa it's a very important commodity so I think the relationship started with historical relationships between EFF and ETG obviously our brand of fertilizer was known in the market and they were looking for a partner to come in come and board and ETG's unique position is that we are able to offer a two-way supply chain so by providing inputs fertilizer seeds agrochemicals while also buying back farmers crops so in Kenya we have three major buying uh points two located in the main growing regions Eldret and Katali and one main center in Nairobi those points are used for for both selling inputs and also buying back farmers crops so the discussions began and our contract was set up with the e-granary whereby we provided fertilizers and the agreed price delivered to their various distribution points and at the end of the season based on a yield prediction model we priced up a off-take contract for a set number of tons at a minimum price very few aggregators we're aware of are able to offer a minimum price especially on a volatile price commodity such as maize however we understand the importance of this in order to build trust within the value chain and also giving financial institutions comfort to provide finance so we we based our pricing on a number of different factors including the previous years government minimum buying price and over the years we will obviously tailor make this to ensure that the farmers do not get disappointed at harvest time while we put in a minimum price we also update EFF on a weekly or even daily basis on our prices um so if the prices go up we pay that to the farm if the prices go down the same so we're completely transparent um for us um the advantage is that we are leveraging a lot more of of our sort of the fertilizer supply chain historically obviously we've been the two businesses have been fairly separate so that's why we want to work with the likes of EFF and co-ops because they are very powerful um on the ground presence in in places like Kenya where value chains are often very fragmented and it's a very relationship driven value chain so we value that immensely with EFF and we look forward to continuing it going forward both as Daniel says he's increasing his yields but also looking at other crops um where you know the margins might be higher um and as Daniel says there might be opportunities for adding further value um and I think maybe I'll just throw in there you from my side that's probably going to be around proteins and soybean um we're just trying to find the right varieties um suited to Kenya um so yeah that's that's my five minutes thank you very much Giles and thank you to all the panelists my colleague Emily Pollack is going to very quickly wrap up the webinar okay thank you I'd just like to say a thank you to all the panelists for the webinar today uh and engaging actively on this really interesting topic um I think we've really spanned the big picture context the questions the challenges and some of the much finer nuts and bolts and I think there's been a lot shared and a lot learned so we will be preparing a blog uh and we will include the slides in that uh and we hope people will stay in touch there and and as we move forwards with epic project and future webinars and and exchanges on on this topic we welcome feedback um we hope everyone stays very safe and we stay connected and keep on with this work looking at how to support producers in their commercial agriculture from all our different perspectives so thank you to all the panelists and thank you to all the participants and we look forward to connecting as we move forward together thank you very much