Afriex Development Institute

MICRO FINANCE FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT COURSE

INTRODUCTION

Majority of the world’s poor are farmers. These farmers cultivate less than 5 acres’ piece of land and are situated where the transport infrastructure is very poor. They have limited access to seeds and fertilizer they need to produce a good harvest. Most of these farmers lack access to financial services that could help them buy the farm inputs to increase their crop yields. There is need for these farmers to access financing through the available global microfinance industry to increase crop yields by buying farm inputs, increase their farm incomes by selling the surplus crop yields and reduce poverty.  Most microfinance institutions use farm records as collateral and individual farmers in a stable farmer group as granters. Most farmers don’t keep farm records and they are not in any stable farmer group, so it is hard for them to access farm financing from these microfinances.

DURATION

5 days

TARGET AUDIENCE

v  Stakeholders in agriculture and agribusiness

v  Farmer based groups;

v  Food processors;

v  Traders and intermediaries;

v  Production Managers

OBJECTIVES

Upon completion of the course, participants will:

v  Understand the special challenges of rural areas that are traditionally associated with rural and agricultural credit directed to the poor. 

v  Build a deeper understanding of the fundamental issues of rural finance. 

v  Be familiar with several innovative models and alternate ways of offering rural finance services. 

v  Gain skills in conducting seasonality analysis, preparing cash flows, assessing risk and appraising loans. 

v  Develop an understanding of new and innovative loan products and savings approaches for agriculture and rural areas. 

v  Gain awareness of sources and reference links to further information and support for addressing future challenges in the application of financial services in rural areas. 

v  Understand the importance of farm record keeping and farmer groups engagement to microfinance in the rural setting.

v  Understand the impact of smallholder agricultural marketing and the cost benefit analysis at farm level

v  Appreciate the importance of crop and livestock insurance.

COURSE OUTLINE

v  Rural financial services

v  Requirements from microfinances for credit to farmers.

v  Linking farm record keeping to microfinancing

v  Sustainable farmer groups with microfinancing

v  Agriculture value chain financing

v  Smallholder farm produce marketing.

v  The role of markets in rural and agriculture financing.

v  The risk of financing farmers can be mitigated

v  Bundling farm financing with other linked services.

v  Crowding in key players in farm financing.

v  Evaluating a cost benefit analysis from farm productions.

v  Harnessing the commercialization aspect among smallholder farmers.

v  Tradeoff in farming.

v  Agriculture insurance to cushion the farmer against crop yield loss

v  The impact of agriculture financing on poverty reduction and rural development.

v  The effect of farm credit on increasing agricultural production and farm efficiency.

v  Financial innovations to boost the uptake and use of farm credit.

REQUIREMENTS

Participants should be reasonably proficient in English. Applicants must live up to Afriex Training Ltd admission criteria.

METHODOLOGY

This course will utilize a variety of proven adult learning techniques to ensure maximum understanding, comprehension and retention of the information presented

TRAINING VENUE, LOGISTICS AND PAYMENT

v  Training is residential and will be held at Afriex Training Centre.

v  The course fee covers the course tuition, training materials, two break refreshments, lunch, and study visits.

v  Accommodation and airport transfer are arranged upon request by the participant.

v  This training can also be tailor made for your institution upon request. You can have it delivered in our training Centre or at a convenient location.

v  For further inquiries, please contact us on training@afriextraining.org

v  Payment should be made to Afriex Training Limited bank account before the start of the training and receipts sent to training@afriextraining.org

v  Upon successful completion of this training, participants will be issued with an Afriex Training Ltd certificate.