Agricultural Value Chain Finance in the COVID Era

Agriculture is the still the backbone of many economies and can play a crucial role in times like this, especially when COVID-19 and the measures to mitigate its spread are devastating many urban centers. While COVID-19 has made us appreciate the urgent need for agriculture and especially, low external input sustainable agriculture (LEISA) for economic revival, in many strategic contexts, we still find agriculture lacking the quality attention that it deserves, despite its known crucial role in food security and economic revival.

This virtual conference will explore how value chain finance (VCF)—apart from enhancing access to finance for primary producers in a chain—can also help in achieving the following:

• Creating better and enabling infrastructure in the chain.
• Enhancing competition among various stakeholders and increasing choice within the chain.
• Reducing vulnerability of producers (marginal, small and primary producers) and increasing their staying/ bargaining/negotiating power vis-à-vis other actors in the chain.
• Acting as a catalyst to stimulate access to productivity enhancing/other technology and related good practices.
• Facilitating small/marginal and other primary producers to get better returns/rewards through better access to business development services including access to markets.
• Enabling product, process, functional and channel improvement/upgrading in the chain, which is critical.
• Address other constraints and problems in the chain.