Bram Willem van den Bosch
Banks don’t lend to smallholders, so to make ends meet smallholders often take out exploitative loans from moneylenders and sell their goods at awful prices. They get caught in a vicious cycle of debt and shocks.
The Idea
Bank the Best Farmers Season After Season
Organization
Organization
Emata Uganda Limited
Mission
Increase farmer income.
How it Works
Emata partners with cooperatives and agribusiness and helps them digitize their farming records. They use that data to calculate and offer farmers a responsible loan amount, which they then disperse directly to the farmers. When farmers deliver their harvest, the cooperative or agribusiness pays Emata back directly.
The Dream
Businesses offer affordable, transparent loans directly to smallholder farmers worldwide. Farmers deliver their harvest to cooperatives or local agribusiness that pay the lending business back directly.
Why We Picked Bram
Bram understands the full spectrum of finance and credit - his experience ranges from banking in Europe to financial inclusion in Uganda. He started Emata because he understood that one of the most pevasive challenges in smallholder agriculture is market access and affordable credit. It's rare that solutions effectively meet one of these challenges; Emata is trying to solve for both. The test is if Emata can deliver a sufficient volume of loans to create enough margin to entice other businesses to replicate their model. If they succeed, it could transform how farmers access credit globally.
