SSNUP project completion: digital post-harvest services for Indian smallholders

The project by responsAbility expanded Arya.ag’s storage, financing and market access services to more farmers and their cooperatives via dedicated trainers and a digital platform.  

India’s leading agritech platform Arya.ag provides farmers with storage solutions at their farms, as well as with financing and market access to enable them to choose when and to whom they sell their produce after harvest. As a result, they no longer need to rely on expensive middlemen to sell their crops and the storage enables them to delay the sale until prices have increased again after the harvest season.

Image

A SSNUP-sponsored project by responsAbility co-financed a train-the-trainer programme to expand Arya.ag’s services to more farmers and their cooperatives via a digital platform. In total, over 50,000 farmers from 31 cooperatives were onboarded.
 
The key lessons learnt from the project include the need for robust trainer selection, retention strategies and direct oversight of the trainers to improve the quality and continuity of the training. During the project, it was necessary to overcome mistrust and a lack of digital literacy amongst the producer organisations to encourage the adoption of the new digital and financial services. To this end, peer experience sharing and continuous engagement were found to be essential.

The project not only unlocked further funding for Arya.ag from responsAbility, but also enabled several producer organisations to access additional funding from financial institutions thanks to their successful track record with Arya.ag.