In the weeds
on agri-finance
and food systems.

At CGAP, I'm looking at how private agri data stacks are emerging, built on digital rails and leveraging alternate streams of data (e.g., satellite and climate data), and are starting to give lenders actual visibility into smallholder borrowers.

I'm observing that MFIs have mostly stayed away from productive micro-assets like solar irrigation, despite the impact potential across livelihoods (diesel savings) and clean energy. PAYGO seemed like the workaround, but reports suggest that model is broadly struggling across solar assets, and distributors are heavily grant-reliant. So the question on my mind is: what's next? What kind of finance is suited and sustainable when it comes to mid-size productive assets?

Relevant given my time at USAID working on FASA's early capitalization. Report here →

Most of the financing conversation around regenerative agriculture focuses on the production side. How do we price transition effectively? How do we navigate subsidy regimes and develop non-distortive incentives?

But the question I keep coming back to is: how do we generate demand? Often — though not always — there isn't a ready pool of buyers willing to pay a premium for regenerative yield. I saw an exciting answer to this in Andhra Pradesh, where government procurement subsidies for temples essentially manufactured demand by creating a guaranteed offtaker. I'm interested in how financial structures and policy choices can come at this challenge in other creative ways.