The Council of Smallholder Agricultural Finance (CSAF) State of the Sector 2018 publication showcases the success of this alliance of 12 social lending institutions targeting agricultural businesses in low- and middle-income countries. Very concretely, the members have had the following impact since the foundation of the CSAF in 2013:
Lending has increased to an annual USD 716m. Growth rates have plateaued at 2% in 2017, after an average growth rate of 12% in previous years.
Funding of African agricultural SMEs have increased by 24%, and in South & East Asia by 18%. South America has been declining for the last 2 years.
CSAF members support 794 businesses showing strongest growth in Kenya, Indonesia and Rwanda.
CSAF borrowers provide market access to 2.2m smallholder farmers, 35% of which are women (up from 29% in 2016), and employ 82,000.
Coffee is the mainly financed value chain and increased to 44% of CSAF members` lending (up from 39%).
Portfolio at Risk (30 days) increased in 2017 to 8.5% (8.1% in 2016).
The client retention rate of CSAF members reached 85%.
Overall loan sizes increased by 3% but loan sizes for new borrowers declined by 30%.
Please have a look at the full report (Council of Smallholder Agricultural Finance (CSAF) State of the Sector 2018) to see the interesting analysis that Dalberg Advisors worked out. A few good messages, but also a few we might have to chew on when thinking about our continued support to agricultural lending.
