Blog Series

Digitizing Agricultural Value Chains

In reality, agriculture value chains - the range of steps and related actors necessary for an agriculture product to move from the farm to the final customers - are often quite complex. Digitizing the processes around payments could make these value chains more efficient. There are clear benefits for buyers to going digital, including lowering the costs of withdrawing, transporting, and securing cash and distributing payments – either to farmers directly or via associations or cooperatives. But the value proposition for farmers is less clear. The overall lack of mobile money ecosystems in rural areas, even in countries with the most developed digital financial service ecosystems, gives farmers little incentive to switch from cash to digital payments.