QUALITY INPUTS CHALLENGE CHALLENGE; UGANDA
PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED
Quality agricultural inputs.
Learn more about the Improved Farm Practices Challenge and why increasing the effective use of fertilizer has the potential to unlock significant crop yield for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION
Seedloans helps female smallholder farmers in Uganda grow more to feed their families.
The model combines the proven microfinance mechanism with a holistic solution along the entire value chain. One woman receives 10kg of bean seeds as a loan. She plants the seeds in her field, where they grow to ~100kg of beans within three months. After the harvest the woman gives back ~20kg of her beans to Seedloans as an in-kind repayment. She uses the remaining ~80kg to feed her family, sell an extra on the market or replant beans for the next season. Seedloans offers 5kg, 10kg, 15kg and 20kg options to farmers – enough to cover one acre of land, the typical field size of a smallholder.
Elizabeth Nalugemwa is a trained entrepreneur and an Obama foundation leader. Growing up as a daughter of a female rural smallholder, she wanted to empower farmers to overcome the challenges she experienced at home.
Sabrina Kuespert is trained in business administration. She grew her passion for smallholders during her time in agricultural finance at KfW-Developing Bank. Currently she is a strategy consultant at BCG.
Lisa Stolleis is a trained economist and pursues her masters degree in Public Policy at the Hertie School of Governance. She gained experience in international development as intern and consultant at the GIZ and International Trade Centre of the United Nations.
Merlin Stein is a trained economist and collected profound experience in Impact Measurement in several projects during his graduate time at Oxford University. He currently works in strategy consulting at BCG.
PILOT AND SCALING GOALS
Directly reach 500 smallholder farmers in the pilot period
Reach 1,000 farmers by the end of year 1 and 8,000 by the end of year 2
FOUNDING TEAM
Elizabeth Nalugemwa - Co-founder and Team Leader
Merlin Stein - Co-founder
Lisa Stolleis - Co-founder
Sabrina Kuesper - Co-founder