Assam eyes innovative agro value chain finance models

Guwahati: Assam government is giving special initiatives to finance and promote value chain financing models for farmers. 

The initiative will benefit Farmer's Interest Groups (FIGs) Farmer's Producer Companies (FPCs)  and other stakeholders to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing among farming classes.

With promises to promote and facilitate value chain financing models under Assam Rural Infrastructure and Agricultural Services Society (ARIAS) under the Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project (APART), Assam is taking many initiatives.

APART is a World Bank-funded project implemented by ARIAS Society. ARIAS Society is an autonomous society under Agriculture department which serves as the implementing agency for such projects. 

APART has collaborated with financial service providers to deploy business models and instruments for delivering financial services to empower those involved in the agricultural value chain.

Mention may be made of Xamahar- the Assam Agrifin- that is a part of  the APART. The initiative supported by the World Bank is popularly known as the Challenge Agricultural Fund. This is because it is a competitive funding mechanism to support innovative approaches, particularly in the private sector.

It delivers financial services at scale for farmers in key agricultural value chains in Assam. The project is implemented by the ARIAS Society as the Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project.

Xamahar runs to support testing and/ or scaling up of tested innovation by financial service providers like banks, MFIs, value chain financiers, insurance companies, and payments service providers that increase access to financial services like savings, payments, insurance, and credit among agricultural value chains in Assam.

Under the umbrella of Xamahar, 10 subprojects are running that partially cover the cost of developing, testing, and/or scaling up innovations in products and processes that improve access to finance for agriculture value chains in Assam.

Under these sub-projects NBFCs, banking partners, and other institutions are providing different offerings to farmers/FPOs/FPCs. 

These subprojects are implemented in 23 priority districts benefitting  125, 000 producers including 30 percent of women beneficiaries.

Some of the financial institutions involved with Xamahar are Manipal Business Solutions, Rang De-SV Agri, VImoSewa, DeHaat, ESAF Small Finance Bank, and FIA Technologies. Go Green works across the agro value chain, providing a range of post-harvest services like warehousing.

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