Rabobank Group

Three groups of agricultural entrepreneurs can be found in Zambia : Commercial famers: a small group of commercial farmers t is often responsible for a large part of the country’s agricultural production. These commercial farmers are capable of providing banks with the required management information, such as technical results and financial results, and they have good access to finance. Emergent farmers: medium-sized family farmers whoseare farms are currently too small to earn a good structured income and who have more or less access to finance. One difficulty is that they can provide little reliable technical or financial information to the bank. Small farmers or peasants. The third group at the bottom of the pyramid consists of the very small farmers or peasants. They are too small to develop their farm to a level that would enable them to earn a sustainable income through their business.

The first group is bankable. Inin most cases these farmers are already clients of the head office of our partner bank Zanaco.
The second group has the possibility to grow and professionalise so that the farmers can earn an income from their farm. This is the group we have to focus on within the context of the emergent farmers programme in Zambia.
The third group is a very difficult one for the bank to serveThey are in fact too small and do not have sufficient payback capacity. This group can only be reached by the bank via out-grower schemes and  credit co-operatives.

Emergent Farmers Programme
In order to improve agricultural production in Rwanda,  Rabo Development started the emergent farmers programme, in co-operation with our partner bank Zanaco and the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU). The key objective is to look at the way the agricultural value chain works. In order to achieve results, we work in co-operation with partners in the agricultural network and with the stakeholders in the chain. This is a characteristic approach within the agricultural sector in light of the prevailing structure of large, medium and small companies.
A critical success factor is to get the farmers union involved in the programme to ensure sufficient institutional support.

Principles of  Emergent Farmers Programme

• The objective is to provide finance and support based on stringent business principles to a group of farmers who are unable to access bank finance and support services.
• Focus on farmers who possess proven entrepreneurial skills, track records, minimum farming sizes and assets.
• Transform these farms into larger, independent commercial farms.
• Grow the commercial farming sector in the country.

In Zambia, as in most African countries, the farmers’ level of professionalism is insufficient to achieve good results and to produce good quality products. An important part of this programme consequently consists of providing technical and economic assistance to the participants.

Providing support at farm level
The aim is to improve:

• Farming methods and business management skills
• Farm economics and marketing
• Soil quality, use of fertilisers, chemicals, crop rotation, etc.
• Size of production area and production base
• Bookkeeping and record keeping
• Cash flow forecasting and budgeting
• Productivity

The technical support within the emergent farmers programme is organised by the partners in the agricultural value chain e.g. suppliers of seeds, fertilisers and chemicals.

Website Zanaco