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i'm umi howard director of the Lippmann
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family prize at the Wharton School and
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today I'm here with Liz L Van Riper the
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vice president for development at my
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agro welcome
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hi Amy thanks for having me so Liz L the
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idea for my aggro came from the vision
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that there was an opportunity to
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reimagine the way that small holder
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farmers in Africa were repaying their
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loans can you tell us a little bit about
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the start of my era grow and what
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inspired him sure so my anger was
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actually founded by Anushka at nayaki
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and she was an early employee of Kiva
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where she was learning all about
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microfinance and realized pretty quickly
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that if she wanted to make a dent in
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poverty she would have to work with
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smallholder farmers moved very quickly
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to Kenya and Rwanda working with one
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acre fund and while she was there she
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was figuring out how to help farmers
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repay their loans at higher repayment
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rates and it was during this time
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working on loans working on expanding
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micro credits when she experienced
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farmers approaching her trying to prepay
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their loans early and this was
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surprising because you know they didn't
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need to but yet they want to prepay as
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when they had the cash she even had some
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farmers pay the next year's loan in full
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before even and before even getting the
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loan and the reason this was so
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interesting was because the notion is
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that farmers are too poor to say they
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don't actually have money to save so
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even though these farmers were
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practicing the they were speaking the
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language of credit they were actually
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practicing the behavior of savings and
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Anushka was starting to see that maybe
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credit isn't going to be what's going to
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scale and actually include enable
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farmers to have some access to finance
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and you may know that right now the
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annual need for farmers
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the annual financing need for farmers
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all the smallholder farmers in the world
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if they could have the right amount of
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fan financing to invest in their fields
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it would be about two hundred billion
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dollars a year and only a quarter of
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that is being met currently so credit is
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pretty limited in its reach when it when
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it comes to small holder farmers
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so anishka realized that there really
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was an opportunity to you know look at
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the ability for farmers to save their
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own money and sort of self finance the
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inputs the seed the fertilizer the tools
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and the training they need to get out of
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poverty so that's how she started
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working on micro loans and expanding
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access to microloans and realizing that
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there's other ways to complement the the
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microcredit industry and to look at
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savings as that vehicle to fill the gap
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so Lee Zell can you actually say a
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little bit more about where exactly you
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operate and how that affects the model
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of my Agri yeah so right now we are
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working in Senegal which is where our
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headquarters are located and also in
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Mali and in that part of Africa in that
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part of West Africa if farmers have a
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lot of land but they don't have access
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to the financing they need to invest in
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those lands and to buy the seed and
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fertilizer to do it properly
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and so there's in this enormous need
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you've got a lot of uncultivated land
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and three-quarters of the population in
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Mali for example are farmers and you've
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got a lot of young people there who
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could be potentially the next wave of
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future farmers for West Africa so for
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initio is a natural a natural place to
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test out this idea of can farmers save
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their own funds to invest their way out
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of poverty in addition there's also a
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lot of familiarity with scratchcards you
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know the ability of a farmer to use a
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scratch card model you know farmers they
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they purchase mobile phone cards almost
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weekly regularly scratch off the code
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and they punching that code and they've
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just topped off their mobile phone with
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more minutes and that's a regular
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practice in West Africa so Anushka
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thought let's this scratch card model
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could work really well and it wouldn't
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require a ton of behavior change for
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farmers so she wanted to test this model
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out in Mali it worked out well
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politically there was a coup that just
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followed by a counter-coup so she
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thought maybe we can also expand into a
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more stable region expanded the model
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into Senegal and this year we're working
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with 25,000 farmers in each country
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the program is growing and the Senegal
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is proving a wonderful place for us to
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have our headquarters and our home base
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and continue testing new ways to
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increase farmers a productivity and
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farmer income so organizations like my
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agro that are trying to change people's
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lives really are dealing with complex
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adaptive problems right the environment
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changes the ways that we try to do the
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work change can you point to one thing
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that's changed in my agro over the past
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five years in terms the way you approach
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the work what's changed yeah so we're
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starting to see now more and more that
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climate change is a problem for our
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farmers it presents a major challenge
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when our farmers are now contending with
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shifting rains and shortening
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rain-shortened rain seasons more so now
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than ever
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and so when farmers are having to
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contend with shorter rainy seasons or a
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rainy season that starts later we have
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to figure out how we can help support
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them one of the ways we're doing that
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for example is we've we've rolled out a
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new product a new crop package or
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sorghum sorghum is a seed that is
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drought resistant and it's resilient you
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can actually plant it and even if the
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rains don't come at the time that the
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farmer is expecting the rains to come
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the see the seed will still stay intact
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and germinate when the rains eventually
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do make it so that's a type of seed that
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again a farmer who's contending with
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unpredictable rains and having very
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little labor to plant during that short
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planting season sorghum is a great
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package for us to sell and it's also
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nutrient dense so we actually sold quite
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a few packages of sorghum to women
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farmers this year and we plan to expand
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that program again as a way to help
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farmers build their resilience against
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the the shifting climate so that would
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be a recent more more recent phenomenon
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that we're having to deal with so you've
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worked at several cutting edge social
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impact organizations including Kiva
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kickstart can you say a little bit about
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you were attracted to my aggro oh yeah
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I'd love to so I've been fortunate
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because much of my career has been in
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service and working within for small
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holder farmers and entrepreneurial
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minded entrepreneurs really and I've
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always loved working at it in a model
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that helps a farmer or helps an
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entrepreneur lift themselves out of
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poverty and microfinance and microcredit
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has largely spurred that you know once
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an opportune entrepreneur has access
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even so as little as $400 you know that
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can go such a long way in a place like
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Mali and Senegal so I've always been
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inspired by models that extend and
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expand access to capital and my iGrow is
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going to do that and I think in my heart
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in a much bigger way than we're seeing
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right now with microfinance my Agra's
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model is tapping into people's own
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finances it's their own ability to lift
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themselves out of poverty using what
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they're already familiar with you know
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their mobile phones and scratch cards
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and to me that's that's inspiring and
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it's exciting because I think it has
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potential to scale across rural Africa
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in a way that microfinance and
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microcredit hasn't yet I see the two as
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complementary you know like I mentioned
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earlier there's an enormous financing
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gap for small holder farmers around the
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world we need as many solutions as we
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can and I think of savings and mobile
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layaway as a complement to microcredit
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so that really points us towards the
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future what do you see for my a grow in
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the next five to ten years well right
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now we're at an inflection point we're
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working with 50,000 farmers this year by
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2020 we're expecting to be working with
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200,000 farmers in that year alone we're
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expanding to Tanzania to trial our model
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with mobile money mobile money's
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prevalent there and we think that if we
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can find a way for farmers who use
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mobile money to save little by little
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that that could scale quickly we also
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see ourselves on track toward our North
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Star
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which is working with a million farmers
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in 2025 and by that time we want to
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double their farm income so take farmers
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who are living on a dollar 50 a day and
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get them to about $3 a day so that's
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where I really see my eye grow in the
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next seven years seventy five to seven
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years how are we going to get there
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we're really excited because we're
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starting to tap into an exciting new
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distribution channel and that's savings
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groups so today there's about 16 million
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farmers who are already organized into
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formal and informal savings groups and
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so they're already in these savings
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groups practicing savings patterns
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savings behaviors but they're not using
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their savings to invest in their fields
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so the handful of large NGOs that manage
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these savings groups there are now
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working and partnering with my Angra
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asking us to come in and help those
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savings group members who by the way are
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mostly women help those women savings
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group members save and divert their
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savings on what's actually going to
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increase their income which is
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high-quality seed fertilizer and
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training in their fields right now a lot
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of the savings group members they're not
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investing that savings into their fields
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and that's where my grow comes in it's
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actually a really great marriage between
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the savings groups on my grows model we
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drive the impact and they can fete they
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can already use their regular savings
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behaviors to help lift themselves out of
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poverty so that's really where I see us
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heading is expanding through these new
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distribution channels of savings groups
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so at the Lippman prize we are very
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focused on the potential for the
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transfer of practice between
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organizations an organization like my
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agro has a very adaptable framework in
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terms of the way that you work with
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government agencies nonprofits these
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savings groups when you think about the
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transfer or the spread of the my Agra
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model what do you need in order to make
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that happen we've got to build in our
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platform first internally we've got a
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mobile layaway platform that we've built
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on Salesforce and it's been something
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that has worked well for us in the last
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seven years that since we since we've
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been founded we're now at that point
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where we're serving 50,000 customers
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this year and if we're doubling to a
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hundred thousand two hundred thousand
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we've got to get a much much more robust
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platform and on the tech side that's
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going to enable us to partner more
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easily with these large savings group
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networks so first and foremost is
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getting our mobile platform on another
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level
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it's also building out our middle
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management so right now when you look at
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the my girl model we've got a whole army
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of field agents these these men and
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women field agents who are working on
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the ground with our farmers and with the
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village mom-and-pop shops to try to
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enroll more farmers into my a grow at
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the rate at which we're scaling we need
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a pipeline of the best from that group
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we're going to serve as the managers in
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the middle layer so that's going to take
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a lot of training a lot of grooming and
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identifying who our most promising
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leaders are we've got a new training
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academy that we've implemented that is
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designed to build a pipeline of future
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middle managers so that's something that
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we're going to have to prepare for is
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making sure we not only have the right
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tech and mobile platform systems in
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place but that we have the right people
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who are ready to go and trained and
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ready to grow with us so you're
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describing a iterative process for
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developing the organization and refining
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the model
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can you share one challenge that you've
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had over the last few years in getting
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to the place where you are now
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and maybe a little bit about how you've
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worked to overcome it yeah literacy
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rates are quite low where we work in
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Mali especially and we have been
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challenged in our field agents whom I
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mentioned those are our frontline
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staffers who are going out there working
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with the farmers and if they aren't
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literate or the vendors are working with
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arts illiterate then it becomes a
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challenge to implement our training our
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training materials much of which
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includes written language so we've had
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to adapt by creating
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low literacy tools lots of photos
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lots of icons we have a smartphone that
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all of our field agents and our mom the
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village vendors are armed with weak whip
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them with a smartphone and they use this
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to actually work with farmers to get
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them to enroll with my agro and this
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year in Mali we've rolled out a low
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literacy app so if I'm talking to you as
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a farmer instead of showing you words or
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trying to read words to you I have very
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easy-to-use pictures and both of us if
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we have low literacy can go through the
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process quickly and easily so that's an
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area that we're innovating around and
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trying to build and work around is how
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do we achieve success and impact in a
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setting where the literacy rates are so
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low my a girl also is doing work that
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really emphasizes women's leadership and
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so can you talk a little bit about the
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opportunity that you see there and the
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ways in what you're doing it so we're
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one of the one of the facets about Maya
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grow that I love so much is we're one of
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the fastest growing employers of rural
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youth in West Africa there are not as
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many organizations out there that are
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growing as quickly as we are and rely on
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a field staff that need to be from the
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villages where we serve so that means
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we're recruiting at a rate now that's
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it's pretty exciting we're constantly
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looking for qualified field agents to
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come and work for us and with us they
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undergo a lot of professional
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development as I mentioned we now have a
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training academy so they're getting a
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lot of great skills they become pretty
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savvy whether using a smartphone and
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using apps many of whom have never used
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that before
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right now our field staff our field
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agent staff is about less than ten less
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than seven percent women and we want to
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kick that up we would love to see a
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ratio of 30 percent of our staff at
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least being women and in order to get
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there we've got a groom again find the
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best one and figure out how to groom
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those potential leaders so this year we
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launched something called leadership day
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FM and it's the women's
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leadership program and we're looking for
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the best and the brightest women who
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have promised and we're putting them
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through training that they've never in
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their lives received like how did how to
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build confidence how to run a meeting
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how to delegate tasks how to how to use
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soft skills to win people over how do
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you talk to customers in a way that
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makes the customers feel good and you're
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sort of building up that customer
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service rapport these are all skills
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that we're teaching in this leadership
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de femme and the the women they have
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said repeatedly they've never gotten
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this kind of training before they've
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never gotten professional development
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before and we don't see this as just for
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my aggro we want to support them for
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their future careers you know this is
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training that's going to benefit them
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for their next job and that's what we
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want we want these women to become
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future leaders from the areas that
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they're that they're serving in rural
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Mali rural Senegal
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so the Berryman reliving a family prize
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combines both a cash reward and a
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partnership for the winning organization
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which is my a grow this year
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congratulations thank you you are going
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to receive 250,000 and unrestricted
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funding can you say a little bit about
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the way that you imagine using that
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those resources
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sure yeah we're constantly building out
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our systems and our leadership bench so
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I mentioned earlier about the the mobile
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layaway platform we want to continue to
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build that out so we can ensure that
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when we are working and serving with a
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million customers in 2025 that we have
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the right infrastructure to support that
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because that's a lot of SMS Texas coming
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in in the form of payments so we want to
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build out that platform again talking
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about the the middle management layer we
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want to continue building at our
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training and education program for our
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field staff to make sure that we are as
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strong and prepared to serve this the
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scale in this inflection point that
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we're currently facing
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we also are experimenting and in trying
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to roll out more work with a planter
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it's a my anchor precision planter and
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what we have found is this planter let
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me back up we actually the biggest
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constraint right now the farmers face
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and why they don't buy bigger my agro
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packages is a lack of labor they have
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said repeatedly if they had a way to
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plant the bigger packages in time for
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the rains they would buy bigger packages
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and what we've come up with is a planter
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that enables them to actually save up to
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ten planting days what and what that
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means is if I want to buy a fifty dollar
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package of seed and fertilizer from my
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agro but I know I there's no way I'm
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gonna plant that in time for the rains
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but if I had this plant or at least
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access to this planter I would buy that
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bigger package and that bigger package
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at the end of the season is going to
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translate into more food and more money
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for me so we're we're experimenting with
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ways to expand access to this planter we
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don't want we're not envisioning that
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every migrant farmer buys this planter
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but we want to figure out ways for them
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to have access to it so we're investing
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our resources and our donor funding and
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answering some some fun questions like
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what if we were to have a lease program
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where we least the the planter to a
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village and they rent it out for income
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sort of like a library system where
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there's someone there who's leasing it
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and they check it out to farmers and
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that person is generating income we get
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we're experimenting and thinking through
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some fund funding mechanisms to get many
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more farmers using this planter so
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that's part of what we'll be using the
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funding on as well as getting farmers to
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increase their impact and that
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translates into you know activities
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around the planter and building out our
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staff and building out our platform in
00:19:37
previous conversation you mentioned that
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there's the some design work to do with
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the planter it makes me think of the
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school of engineering here at Penn being
00:19:48
in Lipman prize-winner it makes my a
00:19:50
grow part of not only the apprise
00:19:51
community but also the Wharton and
00:19:53
broader Penn community can you speak a
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little bit to your hopes for the
00:19:58
partnership there and how we might be
00:20:00
able to
00:20:01
to support the work of my Agra my hope
00:20:04
and vision for this partnership is a
00:20:05
multi-faceted partnership don't get me
00:20:08
wrong the 250,000 dollars in
00:20:10
unrestricted cash grant is hugely
00:20:12
meaningful to us the other parts of the
00:20:17
award are also exciting we would love to
00:20:20
take advantage of leadership development
00:20:23
everyone from you know the the whole
00:20:25
leadership team to our promising leaders
00:20:27
in the field they could benefit
00:20:30
tremendously if they had access to some
00:20:33
of the education program and educational
00:20:35
programming that you offer so very
00:20:37
excited to take advantage of that both
00:20:40
from members of the staff who are like I
00:20:42
said at the leadership level and also in
00:20:44
the field we are always looking for help
00:20:48
with our design that that precision
00:20:50
planter that we have we're trying to
00:20:52
decrease the the manufacture costs how
00:20:55
can we lower the cost of that so that it
00:20:57
becomes more accessible and affordable
00:20:59
and we're constantly looking for for new
00:21:03
ideas and new thought partners so when
00:21:05
you mention the design school that's
00:21:07
that's definitely something we'd want to
00:21:09
explore and I I think of it also is
00:21:12
knowledge sharing you know as you
00:21:14
continue to grow the Lippman family of
00:21:16
honorees how can we help what can we do
00:21:19
that what how can we share what we're
00:21:21
doing and learning and and making
00:21:24
mistakes on you know how do we share
00:21:25
that with your larger honoree group and
00:21:27
your honoree family because we're part
00:21:29
of that now as well so a lot of
00:21:32
knowledge sharing and that would be a
00:21:34
big benefit to us and we'd be happy to
00:21:37
do that fantastic
00:21:39
well thank you for joining us today and
00:21:42
for sharing about my a grow it's been a
00:21:44
pleasure to talk to you Thank You Umi
00:21:46
and thanks for the Lippman family and
00:21:48
the Lippmann Prize Committee for this
00:21:50
honor we're so happy thank you for more
00:21:55
insight from knowledge at Wharton please
00:21:57
visit
00:21:58
Wharton UPenn CDU
00:22:03
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