On Wednesday, Global life sciences company Bayer announced its partnership with Rabo and Mastercard. The deal is a five-year program that aims at helping 1 crore Indian farmers gain easier access to formal financial services. Through this tie-up, three organisations with expertise in agri finance, digital, and payments technology will work together to increase access to agronomic knowledge, goods, services, and partnerships.
Smallholders can now access a variety of digital advisory services through Bayer's FarmRise, an android mobile platform, and through Mastercard's Farm Pass digital platform. Farmers will have access to new markets and a much larger pool of potential buyers, enabling them to improve their livelihoods in a financially sustainable manner.
Most farmers lack a formal credit history, making it challenging for banks to efficiently serve the rural economy. As a result, access to any official financial services beyond the Kisan Credit Card is severely restricted. With Mastercard's Farm Pass, a digital ecosystem platform, farmers will be able to connect with buyers, Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), and other actors in the agriculture ecosystem digitally, enabling them to get the highest price for their goods. It works offline, even with basic phones. This alliance will continue to explore partnerships with Indian banks and financial institutions to increase value for smallholder farmers and the overall agri ecosystem. As a result, farmers will now have more access to funding.
Further, by providing data-driven credit scoring, credit analytics, and product creation within the partner financial institutions, Rabo Partnerships, a subsidiary of the Rabobank Group, will enable the Indian financial sector's access to financial services via the platform.
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