Agricultural Finance: Reaching Smallholders

Agricultural finance must reflect the realities of seasonal production cycles, climate vulnerability, and complex agrifood value chains, yet most smallholder farmers and agri-SMEs remain excluded despite agriculture underpinning a large share of jobs and livelihoods in emerging markets. The challenge is not only access to finance, but how financing models align with the way agricultural systems operate. Key gaps persist: repayment structures remain misaligned with crop cycles, climate risks are insufficiently integrated into financial products, and data systems do not adequately connect farmers and SMEs to markets, buyers, and lenders—limiting both credit access and value chain participation.

This session explores how ecosystem-based approaches—linking finance to markets, strengthening value chains, and embedding risk and data solutions—can enable smallholders and agri-SMEs to increase productivity, build resilience, and drive job creation across agrifood systems.