News & Media
Dec. 22, 2011
We've only just begun: Reaching 100,000 Farmers
At Juhudi Kilimo, we’ve recently undertaken the process of revising our mission to better describe what we do and also create a vision statement to drive our work. As an organization, we decided on these:
Our Mission To provide market driven, wealth-creating financial services that empower smallholder farmers and rural enterprises to create sustainable agri-businesses and improve their livelihoods.
Our Vision To reach 100,000 farmers by 2015 with superior financial services for agri-business.
Juhudi has already developed successful and targeted financial products for smallholder farmers, but our challenge is to expand to reach 100,000 farmers in the next four to five years. We began as a small pilot project in 2004. Today we are 45 staff (spread out across our head office and seven field offices) with just over 10,000 cumulative active borrowers. How do we now grow to meet our ambitious vision?
We’ve only just begun to reach our market
There is a much larger market that we’ve only just begun to tap into. Agriculture is the backbone of the Kenyan economy and accounts for 75% of the workforce. There are 2-3 million rural smallholder farmers in need of financial services in Kenya alone. Though we’re expanding in a measured and systematic manner, Juhudi is well poised to scale across East Africa.
Driven by new funding partners, including the Acumen Fund, Grameen Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation, Juhudi is deepening its presence. Within each of our existing loan groups and regions, there is enormous potential to grow organically based on current demand. Once we increase market depth in the Rift Valley, Central District, and Nyanza through 2012, Juhudi will be in position to open regional offices in the coastal areas of Kenya.
We’re going deep by leveraging technology
Very few commercial banks and microfinance institutions are operating in the deeper rural areas in Kenya where Juhudi Kilimo can best maneuver. Juhudi is broadening its client base in the rural areas by leveraging mobile technologies that allow our field staff to spend more time away from the offices and service the most interior parts of the country.
As we expand, we’re opening small satellite offices where loan officers can serve the most remote areas armed only with simple mobile tools. By offering mobile payments through M-PESA and using open-source technology like ODK-based forms and Simple MFI, developed originally at Juhudi, our staff can reach clients anywhere.
We’re developing new products to serve farmers
Beyond geographical growth, Juhudi is also expanding the range of assets we finance for greater reach and impact. Our high-yield dairy cow loan has helped over 3,500 farmers generate significant income through high returns. Financing for poultry and other livestock businesses have helped Juhudi and our members diversify and grow. Now we’ll add to our suite of products along these and other agricultural value chains.
By financing chilling plants and cold storage, we can provide our farmers with stable high-value markets for their produce. From chilling plants, our loan officers can work with farmers efficiently in a single location and coordinate other services. Financing for agricultural transportation allows buyers and sellers to be better connected. Our financing for high-value agricultural products, such as bee-hives, increases Kenya’s agricultural self-sufficiency and generates additional wealth. Our focus on green products, such as solar lanterns, helps Kenyan farmers save on the high cost of energy, reduces harmful effects, and even allows farmers to run productive enterprises through the evening hours.
As we grow, we remain committed to our social mission and maintaining the Juhudi Kilimo model of sustainably improving agricultural production and income.
Dec. 1, 2011
Welcome Rutendo Change: Juhudi's First Global Acumen Fellow
Rutendo is from Zimbabwe, and worked as a portfolio manager at a financial services firm. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting Science from the University of South Africa. Read Rutendo's recent blog on the Acumen web site about some of her experiences and reflections during training in New York.
We are also fortunate to be the only Acumen investee with two Acumen Fellows. Our Chief Accountant Steve Mutai in a member of the inaugural class of East African Fellows.
Nov. 24, 2011
Juhudi CEO Nat Robinson named Rainer Arnhold Fellow
Juhudi Kilimo CEO Nat Robinson has been selected as a Rainer Arnhold Fellow, representing Juhudi over the next two years.
The program brings Fellows and faculty together for a week to work on design for maximum impact and scalability. Held in a mountain nature preserve, the course gives Fellows the rare opportunity to focus completely on their ideas and a systematic way to apply them.
For more information, see the Rainer Fellows web site.
Aug. 25, 2011
Simple MFI and M-Pesa: Mobile innovation at Juhudi
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| Juhudi staff show a client her repayments in Simple MFI |
Originally published on the Acumen Fund blog on July, 2011.
One of our greatest challenges at Juhudi Kilimo is sheer distance. Our field offices serve wide regions and instead of requiring each client to come to us, our loan officers travel for hours a day to reach clients at their group meetings and farms. Loan officers generally wear through a pair of shoes every two to three months going by matatu (bus) to boda boda (motorbike) and then foot down a dirt road to make their way to clients in very rural areas. Juhudi loan group Treasurers likewise make a long monthly trek into town to deposit their group’s repayments and miss hours of time better spent on their businesses.
We’ve been lucky, however, to attract extraordinary talent to come from around the world to Kenya and help us design and implement innovative mobile solutions. Simple MFI and M-Pesa implementation are two of the projects we’re currently working on.
Simple MFI
Most microfinance loan officers maintain everything on paper, with a handwritten ledger. When it’s time to attend a meeting, the officer will go through the financial records of up to 30 clients to sum up their savings and calculate loan payments. Officers end up doing all of this paperwork by hand, even though the head office often has all of this information in a database. A typical loan officer attends 40 or more group meetings a month so this work really adds up.
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| Clients view in Simple MFI |
Download Simple MFI: Simple MFI, and the related Manta Sync, are available free to download from Android Market.
M-PESA
Juhudi Kilimo is also beginning to offer mobile payments using Safaricom's M-PESA platform. M-PESA is the most widely used and accessible payment platform in Kenya, with over 14 million users, and 28,000 agent locations across Kenya. This makes it larger than all the commercial banks and money transfer agents combined.
Thanks to the Acumen Fund, Ghalib Hafiz has joined Juhudi from McKinsey & Company to help us make some critical improvements to our operations in the coming months, including mobile payments. M-PESA will have a tremendous direct impact—reducing transportation costs and making payments truly convenient. Currently, clients must use Juhudi’s established banking channels in a major town. This often requires that the treasurer travel between two and four hours to make the group’s payments. For many of Juhudi’s clients, the savings in transportation costs alone will offset M-PESA small fees. Juhudi has also integrated with Safaricom's database so that any payments made through M-PESA feed directly and seemlessly into Juhudi's systems—and then to our loan officers via Simple MFI.
June 25, 2011
Juhudi Chief Accountant Steve Mutai joins inaugural class of Acumen East Africa Fellows
The East Africa Fellows Program is designed to develop the Fellows’ leadership skills and strengthen the project that they are driving. The year long program is comprised of five multiday seminars – including one regional trip – and culminates in an innovation conference. The seminars will give Fellows access to world-class speakers, trainers, and mentors who will allow Fellows to deepen their skills in leadership, social change, and innovation. The regional trip will give Fellows the opportunity to learn about social change models in other countries. The innovation conference is meant to be a chance for Fellows to put into practice the skills they’ve learned over the course of the year, as well as provide a platform to showcase their projects to a larger community of leaders.
During each seminar, Fellows will deepen their skills in leadership, social change, and innovation in order to better their effectiveness as a leader and develop their business acumen to support their social initiative. Mentorship is also a strong component of the curriculum, and Fellows will work one-on-one with prominent leaders and trainers on their personal development and on their projects. They will be introduced to different kinds models for social impact. Fellows will study readings and listen to speakers who will push them to challenge their assumptions around the role of government, social justice, and different theories of development.
