Heifer, Mastercard and KCB digital payments initiative launch. New initiative aims to help 30,000 smallholder dairy farmers build digital transaction records, strengthen financial inclusion, and improve access to market financing. Photo by Heifer International Kenya.
Heifer International Kenya, Mastercard, KCB Foundation and KCB Bank Kenya have launched the Farmer Visibility Project, a collaborative initiative designed to digitize transactions, improve access to financial services and markets and support digital payments for smallholder dairy farmers.
The collaboration brings together agriculture, finance, and digital technology partners to help address long-standing payment and financing challenges in Kenya’s dairy sector. Dairy farmers across Kenya continue to rely on cash transactions and informal record-keeping, making it difficult to build the financial histories often required to access formal credit, input financing and other financial services.
Delayed milk payments and cash flow challenges within cooperative systems also continue to push farmers toward informal sales channels, reducing transparency and limiting participation in formal dairy markets.
Through the Farmer Visibility Project, farmers and cooperatives will receive support in digital and financial literacy, registration, account opening, and the use of digital payment tools. By digitizing milk deliveries, payments, savings, and input purchases, the initiative will help create more transparent transaction records, improve access to quality inputs, formal markets, and financing, and enable financial institutions to design solutions that better match dairy farmers’ cash flow and production cycles.
“Smallholder farmers are entrepreneurs. They are business owners, suppliers, employers and investors in their communities. Yet many remain invisible to the financial systems and markets that could help them grow. The Farmer Visibility Project is helping change that by making farmers more visible and better connected to finance, markets and the opportunities they need to thrive,” said Wairimu Munyinyi-Wahome, Country Director, Heifer International Kenya.
“This is more than digitizing transactions. It is about recognising farmers as business people, giving them greater control over their own data and ensuring that digital technology creates real economic opportunities. Together with our partners, we are building a more inclusive, digitally connected and resilient dairy ecosystem.”
Under the partnership, Mastercard is funding Heifer International as the lead implementing partner responsible for the overall delivery and coordination of the Farmer Visibility Project, which aims to reach 30,000 smallholder dairy farmers over a nine-month pilot period and has the potential to scale across Kenya. Heifer International is delivering the project in partnership with KCB Foundation and KCB Bank Kenya as subgrantees.
Mastercard will participate as the digital technology partner, providing Farm Pass capabilities, payment and credit enablement through its Community Pass platform. The technology will support the creation of digital farmer profiles, transaction tracking, and value chain linkages, including in rural and remote communities where digital access remains a challenge. In collaboration with financial institutions such as KCB and other value chain actors, the solution will also support card issuance, digital payments and input purchases, helping farmers build a transaction record that can strengthen access to formal financial services over time.
Shehryar Ali, senior vice president and country manager for East Africa and Indian Ocean Islands, Mastercard, said, “Through our investment and the deployment of our Farm Pass solution, farmer transactions will be digitized, their traceability strengthened, and more seamless access to payments and financial services enabled. By helping farmers build secure digital transaction records, we are not only supporting greater financial inclusion but also creating stronger foundations for long-term growth and resilience for dairy farmers across Kenya.”
KCB Foundation will support implementation through farmer engagement, improving cooperative systems, capacity building, financial literacy, monitoring, and coordination. KCB Bank Kenya will support farmer banking, account opening, digital payment solutions, farmer card issuance, support for agents and merchants accepting digital payments, and access to relevant financial services.
Speaking during the launch, KCB Foundation Managing Director Mendi Njonjo noted: “Sustainable community development begins by creating opportunities that enable people to participate meaningfully in the economy. Through the Farmer Visibility initiative, we are combining digital innovation, financial inclusion and practical agricultural support to help smallholder dairy farmers build resilient businesses, increase productivity and improve household incomes.”
The initiative will focus on reaching 30,000 farmers over a nine-month pilot period, with the potential to scale across Kenya. Lessons from the pilot are expected to help inform wider efforts to modernize dairy payments, strengthen cooperative systems, and expand digital financial services across Kenya’s dairy sector.
