Market Development (MADE) for Northern Ghana is a DFID/UKAid funded project that uses the Making Markets Work for The Poor (M4P) approach to increase incomes and yields for smallholder farmers (SHFs) and small rural enterprises. The project is being implemented by Nathan.

Agribusinesses in Northern Ghana provide inputs to smallholder farmers (SHF) on credit. These transactions are largely recorded on paper. Maintaining the records is laborious and it is difficult for businesses to develop meaningful insights such as credit-worthiness of farmers, the performance of inputs, among others. SHFs do not receive a record of the transactions leading to disputes during harvest.  Additionally, agribusinesses often do not have an off-taker for their produce. They are also unable to access finance as these businesses seldom have the paperwork to successfully apply for a loan with financial institutions.

M-Access is a tool that brings multiple functionalities together to solve the above issues. It allows agri-businesses to record information through a mobile application without internet while providing SHFs with digital records. M-Access registers farmers with Digital IDs and thus provides potential off-takers with transparency across the supply chain. Moreover, M-Access also allows businesses to extract relevant documentation to apply for a loan at the click of a button. Since M-Access also uses GIS, the vision is to use AI to generate customized insights for farmers in the future.

This presentation was submitted to the 2019 SID-Washington Innovation Competition.