BY : Christopher Burke Senior Advisor, WMC Africa
A farmer may have delivered cocoa, maize, coffee or milk to the same buyer for years. A cooperative may know the farmer’s production history, an input supplier what was purchased and a mobile-money account may show recurring payments. However, when the farmer applies for credit, these records usually sit in different places and rarely reach a lender as credible evidence of a functioning farm enterprise. Often described as a shortage of data, the gap is more accurately a problem of recognition.
African farms generate information, but much of it is not produced in formats banks and insurers routinely accept. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) estimates smallholder farmers and agricultural small and medium-sized enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa face a financing gap of around US$117 billion. IFC argues digitisation and alternative data can help lenders reach customers who are difficult and expensive to assess. The World Bank likewise argues for bringing farmer organisations, digital systems and financial services into a common commercial framework.
The practical solution is not simply to digitise farmers, but to create a credible interface between farms and finance. Records generated by cooperatives, buyers, input suppliers, extension services and payment providers need to be translated into forms different institutions recognise. The African Union’s digital agriculture strategy and 2026 implementation work both stress interoperability, farmer registries, digital financial services and secure farmer data management.
A minimum farm-credit profile can provide the necessary interface, covering identity, farm location, cultivated area, crops or livestock, production history, expected income, input needs, obligations and repayment timing. FAO standards show that common data fields can make farmer records reusable and the Kenya Integrated Agriculture Management Information System (KIAMIS) registry demonstrates how registration can support several services. The profile does not determine credit decisions, but provides a common starting point that lowers appraisal costs.
Once banks, insurers, buyers and input companies use the same categories of evidence, however, the profile begins to determine what counts as a credible farm enterprise, who can verify it and which records are sufficient to enter formal finance. Work on agricultural digital public infrastructure warns that fragmented proprietary systems can exclude smaller producers. Government does not need to legislate such rules to influence behaviour. The force comes from institutions controlling access to credit, insurance, inputs and markets.
Processors, exporters and input suppliers can record purchases, deliveries and payments, provide farmers with copies and verify financed inputs. IFC’s Ethiopia partnership with Kifiya is designed to digitally profile one million smallholders and connect them to financial services. Companies could verify commercial facts while regulated financial institutions retain lending decisions.
Cooperatives can serve as verification and aggregation partners without becoming automatic guarantors. They can maintain membership registers, validate production histories, aggregate applications and help prepare seasonal budgets. The World Bank aggregation model links commercially viable farmer organisations to off-takers, technology, finance and markets. Zambia’s integrated system demonstrates how registration, e-vouchers and extension can operate around common records.
Payment history is particularly valuable because it converts commercial activity into a financial record. World Bank Findex research shows agricultural payments remain heavily cash-based across Sub-Saharan Africa while IFC research in Ethiopia highlights collaboration between financial institutions and agricultural buyers. A 2025 World Bank review reports how an e-Agriculture project in Côte d’Ivoire benefited more than 400,000 people and helped create over 43,000 mobile-money accounts.
A farmer with verified deliveries may become easier to finance, while an equally productive farmer dealing primarily in cash or belonging to a poorly administered cooperative may become less visible. In this way, a neutral standard can turn administrative difference into economic exclusion. Evidence requirements should be proportionate to the size and nature of the loan rather than forcing every farm to resemble a formal company.
A farm-credit profile can be formally voluntary, but difficult to avoid once major banks, insurers and buyers converge around it. Remaining outside could mean higher borrowing costs, slower approval or no formal credit. The safeguard is not to reject standards, but to prevent a single private actor from controlling the gateway.
Farmers should be able to see their information, correct errors, know who has accessed it and understand what they authorised. Discussions by FAO in East Africa and Committee on World Food Security (CFS) guidance stress interoperability, privacy, equitable access and responsible data governance. Portability is central. A profile locked inside one buyer’s system creates dependence. A reusable record allows farmers to carry verified history from one lender, insurer or buyer to another.
Implementation can begin in organised value chains around coffee, cocoa, vanilla, dairy, grains and oilseeds. Pilot initiatives can measure approval times, costs, repayment, women’s participation, disputes and how records are reused across institutions. Financial inclusion is increasingly shaped by the infrastructure between farmers and capital: companies document activity, cooperatives verify it, public services confirm production information, technology systems organise it and lenders decide whether it is sufficient.
This can make African agriculture easier to finance. It can also shift authority toward organisations that design standards and control financial gateways. The objective goes beyond making farms visible. Productive farms should be cheaper to assess, records portable between institutions and farmers in control of the data determining access to finance.
Christopher Burke is a senior advisor at WMC Africa, a communications and advisory agency based in Kampala, Uganda. With more than 30 years of experience, he has worked extensively on social, political and economic development issues, including governance, agriculture, extractives, environmental management, policy formulation, communications, advocacy, conflict transformation, international relations and peace building across Asia and Africa.
