Building on its success in India, credit card and payments company Mastercard will expand its Farm Pass digital platform – a one-stop solution that digitizes marketplaces, payments and work flows within the agriculture sector – across the Asia-Pacific region.

Part of the company’s global effort to drive financial and digital inclusion, the pass addresses both the hurdles hindering digitization of rural communities and the economic hardships faced by farmers in many parts of the world. The former, the company notes, includes high rates of digital illiteracy, and significant infrastructure challenges, such as a lack of (or unreliable) internet access, low rates of smartphone ownership and, in many cases, no consistent form of identification or credentials.

In addition, the agricultural value chain, the company points out, can be highly complex, manual and cash-based, which can lead to inefficiencies, waste and fraud. Compounding these systemic issues, while farmers urgently need access to credit and a bigger pool of buyers to make farming commercially sustainable, banks in places like India and Africa can struggle to serve them or underwrite credit.

This is primarily due to a lack of reliable data about their incomes and expenditures, which tend to be cash-based. For farmers, this can lead to higher operating costs, including exorbitantly high interest rates for borrowing from unofficial lenders. 

The operating model of the pass works by first establishing a digital identity for farmers. In turn, this allows their income, harvest data and transaction history to be digitized, enabling them to build a credit profile. By deploying a hybrid physical-digital model, ecosystem partners onboard farmers at scale and capture real-time insights, while farmers receive assistance from agents in-person, as well as digitally, contributing to effective enrolment and adoption of the programme.

Most importantly, the pass ecosystem works both online and offline, enabled by internet agnostic technology and a network of agents who meet farmers in person and connect them to the platform on their behalf. This way, farmers do not need to own a smartphone, pay for data or be digitally literate to participate in the programme.

Once onboarded, farmers are connected digitally to a network of agricultural buyers, inputs dealers and other agriculture players. Through the digital platform, farmers gain access to reliable markets where they can be paid fair prices, while buyers find sustainable sources of quality produce. By bringing together various agri-sector stakeholders in one agricultural marketplace, the pass amplifies the net positive impact on farming communities.

“While technology has brought profound benefits to much of the world, digitally excluded people in remote communities, like most farmers, face unique challenges in breaking the cycle of poverty,” says Ari Sarker, the company’s president for Asia-Pacific. “[The pass] works by addressing farmers’ most pressing needs: to get digital, get paid and get capital, giving them greater leverage in the agricultural value chain.”