myAgro

myAgro is an award-winning non-profit social enterprise, providing food security and lifting smallholder farmers out of poverty. Our North Star goal is to enable 1,000,000 farmers to increase their incomes by $1.50/farmer/day by 2025. 

We enable small-scale farmers to pay for fertilizer, seed, and technical training using myAgro's unique mobile layaway financial tool.  myAgro's three-tiered approach of mobile layaway, input delivery, and tailored agricultural training has resulted in 50-100% increases in yields and 50%+ increases in farm incomes, transforming the lives of farmers in Mali, Senegal, and Tanzania.

Our solution has already scaled regionally, reaching 89,000 farmers in FY20. Smallholder farmers grow ~70% of the world’s food yet make up ~80% of the world’s poorest, with 650 million in Africa. We see the opportunity to change the lives of millions of these 650 million African farmers if scaled *continentally*.

The specific problem we are solving is facilitating contributions FROM smallholder farmers, via layaway payments, to agricultural packages in order to facilitate payments TO these same smallholder farmers via increased income from improved harvests. 

In order to help smallholder farmers lift themselves out of poverty and become food secure, we have devised a non-debt financial mechanism, eg setting aside money, to allow them to pay for farming inputs. Once these farmers have sufficient funds laid away, we also deliver their inputs and training. 

The scale of the problem in each of the countries we work in is defined by the number of smallholder farmers in each of our countries: 35 million across Mali, Senegal, and Tanzania. Our replicable model could ultimately be scaled to the 650 million smallholder farmers in Africa. 

 The most important factor contributing to our problem is farmers needing a frictionless way to set aside funds. They live in rural environments and need help adjusting to a culture of putting money aside. This has resulted in us tailoring our solution even more, with us moving from physical cash collection to mobile payments to facilitate their cash layaway.

Our target is the poorest, hardest-to-reach, and least included populations in rural West Africa: smallholder-farmers, the majority have limited literacy and/or are women. Over 75% of clients live in areas with <75 people per square kilometer. They typically cultivate <4 acres of land, live on <$2 a day, and are vulnerable to climate change and global shocks like today’s pandemic. Furthermore, we focus on women (60% of our clients are female) because while they have an outsized contribution to family nutrition and economic stability, they often miss out on government subsidies. 

We know from 9 years of experience that a holistic solution includes financing, tools, and training, so we provide all three. Our layaway system exists because despite making tremendous strides, microcredit is still prohibitively expensive (average annualized interest rate is 36%). Furthermore, credit only tackles financial inclusion, leaving farmers still without inputs. Research shows that only 25% of smallholder-farmer financing needs are met through credit.

To tackle literacy issues and last-mile issues, we are mobile-focused, using video and image-oriented trainings. This works well for our customers, the majority of whom owns or has access to a mobile phone, using apps like YouTube, WhatsApp, etc.

We directly encourage the informal sector’s smallholder-farmers’ contribution to social insurance schemes, namely a layaway account. With smallholder-farmers not inherently putting money aside, we created a mobile-layaway platform. While not a financial institution, we help farmers have the cash needed for necessary farming inputs and income generation. 

Furthermore, our model encourages behavioral change. With our sales teams regularly visiting farmers, farmers are accompanied. Using a fully data-driven, tech-enabled Salesforce platform we provide complete transparency and accountability. Once a farmer enrolls, he/she knows exactly what’s left to pay and seeing in real time his/her progress, farmers are incentivized.

There are two innovative elements to our approach: 1. Our inherently unique business model to encourage payments TO/FROM smallholder farmers, 2. Our data-driven salesforce to encourage behavior change. 

 Microcredit is the standard approach to inducing contributions by low-income populations to social insurance programs. While helpful, microcredit is not fully cost-effective. Its average annualized interest rate is 36% and it only addresses financial inclusion, leaving farmers still without inputs. Furthermore, research shows that only 25% of the financing needs for smallholder farmers is met through credit. We not only help farmers put money aside, without interest, but we also deliver quality inputs to them. myAgro empowers smallholder farmers, with an emphasis on women, to fund their own development through layaway funds as opposed to debt.

To encourage behavioral shifts, we have an in-house salesforce, Village Entrepreneurs (VEs), who focus on encouraging and motivating our farmers. We use data to inform our VEs so that they know how to approach a customer and foster adapting to cash-layaway. Getting farmers used to putting money aside takes time and communication. For example, a farmer who is struggling to pay is flagged by a VE so that he/she can check in with the farmer. Daily dashboards are accessible, both on- and offline in case of WiFi/network service disruption. Our fully transparent approach enables accountability and fosters continuity.

myAgro has quantifiable data showing our significant impact on smallholder and Sahelian farmers since 2010.  We have market-driven evidence demonstrating that our farmers value our impact: 80% of them return each year (compared to 50% for microfinance, source: IPA) and they increase their layaway payments by 30% on average in their second year. In an external (Lean Data) study, myAgro showed that it is servicing and impacting the hardest to reach and most impoverished farmers:

• 98% of farmers said myAgro was their only option in their community.

• 87% of myAgro’s farmers live below $3.20/day compared to Africa’s rural average of 79%

• 54% of myAgro farmers live in extreme poverty (below $1.90/day) 

myAgro conducts thorough harvest measurements, using statistically-significant sample sizes and industry-wide best practices. A third-party auditor found our impact methods 100% compliant with 2019 measurement protocols. The average yield increase for farmers was an impressive 75% and the average income increase in Mali was $130/farmer. This past season, in the midst of a global pandemic, myAgro delivered packages of seed and fertilizer to 89,000 farmers in Mali and Senegal.

myAgro’s theory of change is that farmers will invest more in their field if they are provided with quality product options and a flexible and convenient way to save (mobile layaway) for farm inputs. Farmer investments through  myAgro’s mobile layaway in quality fertilizer, seeds and other tools lead to increased farmer incomes and food security. Through this approach, by 2025, myAgro will lift 1 million smallholder farmers in Africa out of poverty.

80% of the world’s poorest people are smallholder farmers who face food insecurity. They are stuck in a cycle of poverty due to limited access to financing. myAgro can close the $300 billion financing gap by enabling farmers to invest their own funds towards harvest-boosting inputs, which will increase their incomes and improve food security. 

Smallholder farmers have a cash flow challenge: they have the most cash at harvest time, but the least cash 6-8 months later at planting time when they need it the most to invest in harvest-boosting inputs such as fertilizer. As a result, farmers often do not grow enough to feed their own families each year. The traditional solution has been to provide credit, but credit isn’t scaling fast enough, particularly in Africa. myAgro proposes a radically different solution, grounded in a deep understanding of farmer behavior: mobile layaway. 

myAgro proposes that farmers can actually pay for the farm inputs they need by using their own money. Instead of asking farmers to buy fertilizer and seed all at once, they can pay in small amounts over several months using their mobile phone. In increments and at a frequency that is aligned with a farmer’s cash flow, the payments accumulate throughout the season into a myAgro layaway account. myAgro then buys the inputs in bulk and delivers the products directly to the farmers, right in time for planting. 

myAgro’s model tackles 3 main obstacles to increasing farmer yields and incomes: financing, agricultural training, and on-time delivery of inputs to remote areas. 

Our proven program generates 50-100% increases in yields and an estimated 50%+ increase in farming income for smallholder farmers, 65% of whom are women.

The incorporation of our solution into public service delivery systems is underway. We signed an MOU with Mali’s national-level government, and are currently doing a pilot program with them, to channel funds from their subsidy program directly into myAgro farmers’ layaway accounts.  The goal is to lower the costs of, and access to, quality farmer inputs in order to increase incomes and food security.

Mali is an interesting use-case for myAgro given 70% of its workforce works in agriculture and 79% of its rural population lives in poverty, below $3.20/day, suffering from malnutrition[1], health issues [2], and lack of education. Farmers who do not produce export crops are not targeted beneficiaries of agriculture subsidies or other social benefits and have limited access to formal credit programs. Also, women in Mali do not own their land unless widowed and that further limits their ability to be able to plan, invest and access credit. 

For both men and women, studies have proven that a lack of credit is not the bottleneck to increasing investments in seeds and fertilizer and that layaway accounts could be a key to unlocking greater investments. Farmers do have cash throughout the year but they lack a mechanism to lock away funds for the planting period when they need to make relatively large purchases. The government sees us as a natural partner to help them with the subsidy public service delivery program. 

[1] USAID, 2015

[2] World Bank

myAgro conducts extensive research, surveys, and evaluations when expanding to a new region or launching a new product to ensure that the offering is context-appropriate, user-friendly and will result in concrete benefits for subscribing farmers. In addition, utilizing Village Entrepreneurs as primary sales conduits provides local ownership and increases trust in our mobile layaway platform.

myAgro’s pilot with the government of Mali is already user friendly and incorporated into that country’s social protection programs as we are working with government agricultural extension agents to enroll Malian farmers into myAgro’s layaway platform, and are working with the national government in a plan to invest some of Mali’s agricultural subsidy dollars into myAgro’s farmer layaway accounts so that our inputs, products and services will be government subsidized for farmers.

The technologies that myAgro currently uses are Salesforce, Excel, Python + Pandas, Tableau, and QGIS. We are a tech and data focused social enterprise, focusing on both building the right tools and team to support this. 

myAgro’s mobile layaway platform is run through a Salesforce database and is integrated with mobile money providers and cell carriers so that users can may payments to their myAgro layaway accounts directly through their mobile phones.

We are building a platform that allows for plug-and-play, being a combination of in-house infrastructure as well as leveraging existing cloud-based software, like Salesforce. The goal is to have a nimble, yet tailor made, backend that can grow as we grow. 

To that end, we are also building the right team, and have hired a CTO to lead these efforts.

myAgro sells and delivers its agricultural packages through a network of nearly 2,000 “Village Entrepreneurs” (VEs). Using myAgro-supplied smartphones and specially designed sales and enrollment apps, these commission-based agents are the main points of contact between myAgro and its farmer-clients, enrolling program members and processing mobile money payments. This way, farmers can process their payments directly through the local sales agent if they do not have connectivity or mobile money accounts. myAgro’s VEs use other low-data means to communicate with farmers between payments such as phone, SMS and WhatsApp.

For more tech savvy farmers, they can pay directly into their layaway account through their mobile phone using myAgro’s mobile money interface. myAgro’s sales and payment apps are picture-based, and user friendly for farmers and village entrepreneurs with limited literacy and limited technology skills. Finally, for farmers in low-bandwidth geographies, or without access to a village entrepreneur or cell phone, farmers can pay at a mobile money kiosk, which are present in most of the villages where myAgro is active.

In 2020, myAgro delivered inputs to 89,000 farmers, each supporting on average 9-10 family members, indirectly benefiting 800,000 individuals 

In one year, we aim to serve 110,000 farmers, each supporting on average 9-10 family members, indirectly benefiting 1,000,000 individuals.

In 5 years, we aim to serve 1,000,000 farmers each supporting on average 9-10 family members, indirectly benefiting 9,000,000 individuals.

myAgro’s goal over the next year is to serve 110,000 farmers in 3 African countries. Our goal over the next 5 years is to serve 1 Million farmers in 5+ African countries through our unique mobile layaway model and in partnership with national governments.

myAgro’s model tackles the 3 main obstacles to increasing farmer yields and incomes: financing, agricultural training, and on-time delivery of inputs to remote areas. Because of the uniqueness of the model, the Government of Mali (GOM) has agreed to partner with myAgro to scale to reach 1 million farmers (50% of farming adults in Mali) in the next 5 years. One of our approaches to scaling our model to have a transformative impact is through this partnership with the GOM.

The partnership has 4 goals: 1) to provide farmers a mobile layaway solution as an alternative to credit and grants 2) to funnel part of the government-funded ag subsidy program into myAgro farmers’ layaway accounts, thereby reducing input costs to the farmers, 3) to utilize the government’s 2,000+ agricultural extension workers (AEs) to act as the gateway to myAgro’s services, including training on advanced farming techniques, and 4) to collect and share agricultural data in order to improve government policies affecting farmers and the agricultural sector. 

In addition to our partnership with the GOM, we are also expanding to other regions in Africa with ambitions to enter 3-5 countries in the next 5 years - depending on demand and COVID impacts.

myAgro has identified the following barriers to achieving our goals over the next 1 to 5 years:

Mobile Money Buildout: myAgro is in the process of transitioning to a 100% cashless and digital sales model. This involves bringing mobilemoney capabilities to our current and potential farmer customers.  In order to achieve this goal, we are partnering with mobile operators such as Orange Mobile.  Internally, this involves developing a myAgro payment interface that integrates with external service providers so that farmers can pay directly through their phones. Culturally, this involves training farmers to adopt and accept a new technology.

 COVID-19 restrictions on mobility: If COVID-19 continues to prevent local mobility, rural smallholder farmers might face challenges getting their goods to local markets and myAgro could face future delivery challenges.

Weather & pest-related risks: While poor harvests are an ever-present threat in agriculture, myAgro’s savings-led approach means that farmers do not need to repay a loan, thereby significantly reducing myAgro’s exposure to the effects of a bad year. 

Regulatory risk: Mobile layaway and mobile money are new financial tools and not yet regulated as financial services However, as myAgro’s profile grows, regulation may intensify.. 

Input price and availability: myAgro sets input prices nine months in advance, so a cushion is needed when developing pricing. The risk has been built into all aspects of the scale-up business model.

Mobile money buildout: Our approach is three-pronged to executing a successful buildout - a) hire and retain the best internal product-team talent to support our CTO and operations, b) gain trust and buy-in from third-party partners, and c) secure donor and funder support. Furthermore, we work with behavior-change experts to develop marketing strategies that introduce myAgro and its value-add clearly to farmers to comfortably convert reluctant cash-payers to direct mobile payers.

COVID-19: By continuing to focus on our core model, implement digital/virtual communication mechanisms, and by partnering with governments, we will reduce the risk that negative financial consequences of COVID-19 prevent farmers from investing in their farms. It is even more critical than ever that farmers focus on payments towards their farm as that will enable steady income and food security. 

Weather Risks: myAgro provides crop insurance to all farmers to cover losses in the event of drought. Furthermore, with funding from USAID myAgro is piloting a new weather information service to farmers in 1,300 Senegalese villages. Local and real time weather forecasting information is helping guide farmers on the best time to plant and harvest.

Regulatory risk: myAgro works with consultants and the World Bank to understand the regulatory environment in each of its countries. We are also hiring a COO to support our operations and build out a more robust supply-demand algorithm that will allow us to hedge price volatility in a more sophisticated way.

myAgro has a full time staff of 473.

myAgro launched in Mali in 2012 with a pilot of just 240 farmers.  Since then, myAgro has proven the effectiveness of its solution by scaling to 89,000 farmers in 2020. Last year, our farmers in Mali increased their net incomes $130 (over 100%), increased yields by 78%, and grew over 14,000 tons of food. myAgro has received recognition from Skoll Foundation, Bill Gates and CGAP as innovative and a thought leader for the smallholder farmer space. 

Over the last few years myAgro has accelerated its leadership and technical capacity across the organization including building out a strong executive team, product & data team and sales team with a focus on local leadership and building talent internally. We have the team, technical capacity and relationships to make this initiative a success. 

Globally myAgro’s senior management team is 50% women and 66% live in Senegal and Mali and 40% are West African. In Mali, 60% of the senior country leadership is women and 80% are Malian. 

As an organization, 97% is from the country where they work and are often from the same communities where we work. Farmers often become part of our network as village entrepreneurs or team members. 

Finally, myAgro is a digital-first organization and has the tools and technical capacity to provide simple digital tools with feedback loops to end users. 

myAgro has a successful relationship with Mali’s Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and its various offices. In 2019 we signed an MOU with the Government of Mali (GOM) to accelerate adoption of myAgro’s platform to reach 1 million farmers. Over the next 5 years, myAgro will strengthen its engagement with the GOM specifically by building its capacity for data collection, analysis, M&E, and refining its subsidy program. myAgro also has strong partnerships and relationships with researchers, data companies, ICRISAT, seed companies, fertilizer companies, farmer cooperatives and local leadership to support the scale up of our work. 

myAgro also partners with saving groups networks such as the Stromme Foundation (Mali), Catholic Relief Services (Senegal), and Aga Khan Foundation (Tanzania). Through these partnerships, myAgro is able to access villages with the endorsement of savings group organizations and members. The saving group channel is an important part of myAgro’s customer acquisition strategy as it expands in the next three years. It also guarantees a higher participation rate for women.

myAgro’s business model uses a simple yet revolutionary financial tool: mobile layaway. By paying into their account through a local myAgro sales agent or paying directly through their mobile phones, farmers pay little-by-little, in advance for myAgro-supplied inputs (seeds and fertilizer) and in-depth training. 

As payments accumulate in farmers’ myAgro accounts, households can finance seeds, fertilizer, and other tools such as weather and climate information, crop insurance, and small scale planting machines, in increments as small as $1. Before planting time, myAgro delivers each farmer’s package of high-quality seeds and fertilizer to a distribution point in, or near, their village. More specifics of our model include:

Key Partners: Governments; Seed and Input providers; Networks such as the Stromme Foundation (Mali), Catholic Relief Services (Senegal), and Aga Khan Foundation (Tanzania)

Key Activities: Enroll and sell smallholder farmers a package; collect smallholder farmer payments; deliver smallholder farmer seeds and inputs; train smallholder farmers on latest agricultural methods

Key Resources: Brand/reputation/impact; government relationships; raw materials

Value Proposition: We have the best harvest impact for smallholder farmers; we offer the best seed and fertilizer offerings; we provide up-to-date and relevant agricultural trainings; we deliver near to rural and isolated farmers

Channels: Delivery and virtual (with video trainings and mobile payments)

Customer Segments: Poor and rural male smallholder farmers; women smallholder farmers; elderly smallholder farmers; new and young smallholder farmers

Costs: Team and salary; cost of goods of inputs; marketing; research and development; measurement and evaluation; travel

Revenues: Payments from farmers (layaway revenue)

As a social enterprise, myAgro aims for revenues from farmer payments for goods and services to cover the cost of in-country programs by 2024. myAgro will continue to raise philanthropic funds to cover its non-field based operations.

We aim to be sustainable in order to replicate the model to other countries and reach as many farmers as possible.

We earn revenue from the farmer layaways. It makes up about 20% of our total budget and goes towards the purchase of the products. 

The rest of our budget is supported by grants, which are allocated as follows: 45% come from foundations, 31% from governments and multilaterals, 18% from corporations, and 6% from individuals. 

We also have a short-term working capital facility.

Over the next five (5) years we wish to raise $60 MM to $85 MM in grant funding in order to reach 1 million farmers in 3-6 countries. 

We also wish to raise up to $30MM in working capital over the next five (5) years.

In FY 2020 we spent $7.4 MM on farmer products - this includes the fertilizer, seed, and the cost of delivering the products to the farmers - and on field operations, such as field program staff, field materials, and other in-country farmer-facing expenses. 

$7.3 MM was spent on regional costs such as capacity building, product development and technology, research and development, and monitoring and evaluation, development, finance, and administrative support.

Our solution is focused on enabling continuous payments FROM smallholder farmers into their social insurance program (ie layaway accounts) so that after those funds are used to purchase important agricultural inputs, they reap industry-leading harvests which lead to payments TO these same farmers in the form of increased income. 

One of myAgro’s barriers is enabling frictionless payment methods. Mobile money direct payments will help solve this, yet it has yet to be fully implemented. Our traditional scratch-card model was adopted well because of its familiarity (it is similar to buying prepaid minutes) and because it is “fun”, tangible activity (scratching the code off the back of the card). The expansion into farmer direct payments means that there will be no tangible result and a less “fun” activity. We are exploring ways to make direct payments as appealing as scratch cards. 

Mentorship from Google Developers Experts  will help myAgro develop a user-friendly digital platform where farmers can, and want to, make payments directly into their mobile layaway accounts. If awarded, funding would be most helpful in our data and systems and mobile money buildout, helping to support the salaries of our developers and tech teams and any platforms needed to support it. Furthermore, our team would benefit enormously from Google mentorship, thought-partnering and support if possible. 

Finally, if we are invited to the World Bank to present our solution, we look forward to networking with other like-minded organizations and the exposure to a wider audience that comes with presenting our model.

myAgro has a successful relationship with the Ministry of Agriculture of Mali (MoA) and its various offices. In 2019 we signed an MOU with the Government of Mali (GOM) to accelerate adoption of myAgro’s platform to reach 1 million farmers. Over the next 5 years, myAgro will strengthen its engagement with the GOM by, among other initiatives, refining its subsidy program.

mAgro is partnering with mobile operators and mobile money service providers such as Orange Mobile in Mali and Senegal. This partnership with a large telecom company will allow myAgro to expand our all-digital mobile layaway using mobile money to an increasing number of farmers as connectivity advances in Africa.

Finally, myAgro has strong partnerships with researchers, data companies, seed companies, fertilizer companies, farmer cooperatives and local leadership to support the scale up of our work. 

Government: National Senegalese Government, National Tanzanian Government (already signed an MOU with National Malian Government)

NGOs: we would like to engage a partner such as Open Government Partnership to support the harder aspect of bringing more transparency to the subsidy programs we are looking at with governments

Private Sector: Orange (and other telecoms), Google (develop more analytics and data support), Other Social Networks that allow for information dissemination, targeting, etc (working with Whatsapp piloting their Whatsapp Business)