YICE Uganda
Supporting sustainable agriculture with training and fair loans
Farmers purchase a USD 0.30 annual subscription to be a member of a small farming group, receiving farming tips and training in addition to flexible loans with favourable terms. Thirty percent of the loans are given to the farmers as farm inputs and seventy percent in cash. The groups also receive training on savings, forming savings groups to ensure a sustainable income source. Mobile phone technology is used to relay agricultural information and collect loan repayments.
Eco-Inclusive Impacts
YICEUganda empowers rural women and youth smallholder farmers to rise out of poverty through increased farming incomes resulting from expanded farm productivity and yields and improved access to market information.
Raising incomes of 1,500 smallholder farmers by 30% through improved productivity and access to market information by 2017.
Increasing employment for 30 women and youth: so far YICE provides 11 women and 4 youth loan officers with a monthly income.
Supporting sustainable agriculture in the community by training farmers in practices such as crop rotation, mulching and water management.
Piloting a water harvesting project with five farmers.
Strengthening the local agro-economy by improving farm productivity and yields by up to 150%, and increasing the number of farmers with knowledge of good agricultural practices.
Promoting financial inclusion for rural smallholder farmers leading to increased productivity.
Partners
YICEUganda provides rural smallholder farmers in Uganda with flexible farm loans, inputs and training services to reduce hunger and poverty. With its network of local farm agents, YICEUganda facilitates farmers’ access to bundled agricultural services at various levels of the farming value chain.
The Youth Initiative for Community Empowerment hosts YICEUganda. It provides support, infrastructure, brand and staff mentoring toward the enterprise.
Kiva Microfunds provides an online network of lenders to fund farmer microloans. Kiva supports in client vetting and loan management and repayment.
AgroMarket Day’s mobile application serves YICEUganda to disseminate actionable farming tips and market prices to the farmers.
