African Potash Limited, a vertical platform for the mining, production and distribution of fertiliser and FinComEco, a Financial & Commodities services firm have partnered to launch a blockchain-based loans system for Africa’s agricultural commodity markets.
The two aim to deploy a complete blockchain-based agricultural ecosystem solution in conjunction with the public and private sector commodities focussed community to help facilitate microloans direct to Small Scale Farmers (SSF).
According to Hirander Misra, Founder and Deputy Chairman of FinComEco and CEO of GMEX Group, “We are delighted to be working with AFPO to transform the lives of smallholder farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa. Our unique collaborative approach is delivering best-of-breed technology, standards and inputs (including seeds, fertilisers and pesticides) coupled with agricultural finance facilitation to link the supply to market side demand creating a holistic agricultural value chain.”
The integrated microloan financed, token based, input and output trading ecosystem will make the rate of interest to be significantly cheaper than present agricultural finance costs and more accessible.
All supply chain financing and transaction logging will be accomplished via secure blockchain technology and provided through existing co-operatives, agricultural infrastructure and commodity exchanges enabling SSF to buy agricultural inputs at designated warehouses.
FinComEco backed by majority shareholder GMEX Group will also ensure purchase of commodities grown by the SSF through existing warehouse receipt systems and commodity exchanges.
The partnership will deliver improved access to inputs plus associated financing and a better price for their produce. It will also provide opportunities for further income growth, opening alternative added-value opportunities such as the provision of market information, training and capacity building.
Dr. Chris Cleverly, Executive Chairman of AFPO commented, “ This is a significant step in our strategy to build a vertically integrated fertiliser business from initial resource through to selling, direct to the farm, and demonstrates the role of blockchain technology based solutions to commodity trading.”
African Potash Ltd aims to raise £400,000 to set up an blockchain-based payment system for its fertiliser distribution business. The firm said it would raise £68,000 in November and £332,000 on December 13.