Synopsis: The grant from FSD Uganda has enabled Emata to tap into the existing cooperative ecosystem, enabling farmer groups to onboard members onto a digital cooperative information system that registers farmers’ deliveries, prices, net-pay calculations and more. The platform is creating credit history for the farmers which in turn allows Emata to loan money to members with good performance. It also gives cooperatives a better overview of the ongoing operations at the farm level. By being able to, for example, identify which farmers are the big earners (and which ones need help), or the trends in milk delivery volumes, cooperatives are able to plan better. This benefits the entire ecosystem.

The Emata platform is helping to de-risk the smallholder farmer by digitising their cashflows, which provides immediate insights into how farmers manage incomes and expenditures. This helps the financial sector assess their risk profile and creditworthiness and determine how to lend to these otherwise untapped customers. Beginning with the dairy sector, Emata will also test non-collateral based credit to input merchants that supply to dairy farmers.