Farmdar partners with Bank Al Falah to financially empower farmers
No single agritech startup funding was reported in Pakistan in the whole of 2023 despite technology’s rightful promise to revolutionize the biggest industry that employs the most, feeds the most and contributes to exports the most in the face of climate change that’s worsening every day. But there are early signs of a change, at least in sentiment!
Farmdar, the leading precision ag platform last week announced a partnership with Bank Al Falah, to financially empower farmers through its CropScan database that spans millions of acres. It will enable BAFL ‘to identify prime candidates for lending at scale and speed’, noted the press release. The development comes with the backdrop of similar announcements, a major agribusiness expo and a year-long push by the govt for corporate farming and bringing foreign and domestic investments into the sector.
ProPakistani sat with their cofounders Muzaffar Manghi and Muhammad Bukhari to discuss Farmdar’s journey, the implications of the latest announcement and how optimistic we should be about a more positive future for agritech in the country.
“We hear a lot about agri-financing in Pakistan but most of it is inaccurate with a lot of grey areas in how farmers get the loans. Even if a bank is genuinely interested in agriculture lending, first it faces the archaic form of documentation and second it has no way of real-time monitoring and intervention until the bank gets its money back or the farmer defaults,” stated co-founder Farmdar & Agrom AI, Muzaffar Manghi said.
Talking about the partnership with BAFL, he added that first they will be sharing the pre-digitized data of the existing farmer base and who is most suitable for loans with a bank.
Secondly, banks are also looking to go into remote villages where digitization has yet to begin so that’s the second area of collaboration.
Thirdly, farmers are registering with the bank where Farmdar can share their past data with the bank, what he grew over the years, how the crops performed and how he responded to challenges. They can also inform the bank ahead of time about the possible risks to crops like extreme weather, water shortage and diseases so the bank can engage farmers in a timely manner.
Manghi also revealed that Farmdar’s registration surpassed 100,000 farmers in Pakistan, and they are expecting to top 250,000 by the end of the year. Since their website is also being upgraded, you might not get the best idea of their new and amazing product line-up.
At top, they have CropScan which is a satellite-based large-scale business intelligence platform with a team of geospatial analysts, remote sensing experts, machine learning and data engineers.
Secondly, they have AgriChain, a B2B SaaS platform for farm & crop monitoring, traceability & climate impact. a collection of mobile and web-based apps that allow agribusiness and allied industries to digitize their universe.
It includes other products in the same suite that lets you monitor farm productivity, and team activities, and look at soil organic matter, moisture data and plant health monitoring.