Business Insider Africa: Anushka Ratnayake, a leading expert in digital solutions for smallholder farmers highlights ways household farming can reduce poverty in Africa

Originally published on Business Insider Africa

myAgro is a non-profit social enterprise based in Mali, Senegal, and Tanzania that has pioneered a mobile layaway savings model that enables some of the poorest farmers in the world to invest their own funds in high-quality agricultural products to significantly increase their harvests and income.

In 2021, myAgro farmers grew 61,000 tons of food, worked with 115,000 farmers, trained 50,000 farmers per month on improved agricultural techniques, like composting, and myAgro farmers saw a 30% increase in net income per farmer.

myAgro CEO, Anushka Ratnayake–a winner of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a Rainer Arnhold Fellow, and DRK Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Fellow– founded myAgro in 2011. She is regarded as a leading expert in digital solutions for smallholder farmers, with an emphasis on increasing the number of women farmers, and an important advocate of financial inclusion and sustainable agriculture in Africa.

Below are excerpts from her interview with Business Insider Africa

BI Africa: Let’s start with some background on myAgro’s activities in Sub Saharan Africa and your role there.

Anushka: I spent years traveling around Mali and connecting with farmers during my time at One Acre Fund and Kiva. After countless conversations with farmers, I realized what they were describing was the need for accessible savings. So, I came up with a simple mobile layaway model that operated the same way farmers used to add minutes to their cell phones–using a scratch card.

myAgro was founded in 2011 in Mali with 240 farmers, and we now have more than 115,000 farmers in Mali, Senegal, and Tanzania. We work in West Africa by addressing the root causes that keep farmers—particularly women—in a cycle of poverty:

1. We provide farmers with an accessible, affordable, and safe option to save money to prepay for seeds and fertiliser. Farmers select packages of seeds, fertiliser, and other farming materials based on desired crop and land size and then pay for these packages through our mobile layaway model.
2. We deliver high-quality seeds and fertilizers that are scientifically proven to increase yield significantly.
3. We equip farmers with the information, training, and tools to maximize land productivity.

BI Africa: What has been the community’s response to myAgro’s women empowerment initiative so far?

Anushka: There has been a positive response to myAgro’s focus on women. We often find that women will start farming with us with a small portion of land that they have received from their husbands. Many women have shared that when their husband has seen their yield at harvest that either their husband will enrol with myAgro or they will provide their wife with more land to farm.

We also know that empowering women as farmers benefit families and communities because women are more likely to spend their money to increase the family’s nutrition, improve the home, or support the development of their children by investing in their education. These investments are what reinforce positive outcomes and break intergenerational poverty.

BI Africa: Describe what it means for myAgro to be selected as part of The Audacious Project—housed at TED?

Anushka: We are honoured to be part of The Audacious Project. More importantly, it makes it possible for us to reach our North Star of serving 1 million farmers by 2026.

Each year, myAgro completes a systematic analysis of the harvests of 2,500 myAgro and non-myAgro farmers. To put the impact of our North Star in perspective, in 2021, when we served more than 115,000 farmers, myAgro farmers produced 177% more food than non-myAgro farmers. This enabled them to earn $197 more than non-myAgro farmers. This is a 13% increase from 2020. With $197 more in income, our farmers tell us they can build safer and sanitary cement homes, send their children to school, or open other businesses. All of this supports their rise out of poverty.

BI Africa: Africa is yet to achieve self-sufficiency in food production. Kindly share four ways you think financial inclusion and sustainable agriculture can change this trend?

Anushka: 1. Right now, the biggest challenge is financing. As far as microcredit has come, only 25% of the need is met through formal or informal credit each year. When farmers can save or pay for investments on layaway, we can double the amount of money being invested in farms.

2. Now, with financing taken care of, farmers can buy improved seeds and a responsible amount of fertiliser to make their farms more resilient and double yields.

3. When farmers buy seeds and inputs, the entire input value chain can grow – through the market versus philanthropy. We should see better seeds adapted to local markets on the shelves of every agricultural dealer. Better seeds mean more resilience and food security across the continent

4. Financial inclusion for women will be a game-changer. Women are the backbone of farming in Africa. When women have equal access to the inputs they need to make their farms more productive; every citizen wins: more kids in school, more food, less poverty and greater economic growth across the nation.

BI Africa: What key advice would you give to others that would like to follow your example to become passionate, values-driven, innovative social entrepreneurs?

Anushka: I suggest that any inspiring entrepreneur learns from someone you admire. Go work for them for a year or two, get first-hand experience scaling a social enterprise and listen to customers. Your network and insights will be better for it. Your first customers will give you invaluable feedback to help you create something worth building.

BI Africa: What is your vision and long-term ambitions for myAgro in Sub Saharan Africa?

Anushka: We want to be a catalyst for opportunity across West Africa. We will expand into new countries to reach more farmers to connect them with our mobile layaway model and the agricultural inputs and training that will increase their yields creating food security and increased incomes. Our model includes reaching farmers through our village entrepreneurs, often women. We will significantly increase the number of village entrepreneurs by providing employment opportunities so more women can care for their families, become financially independent, and invest in their futures. And we want our model to act as a proof point and a roadmap for other organisations, donors, and government agencies so that they can leverage a layaway savings model as a way to invest in communities and provide a pathway out of poverty.