Mastercard, LEAF and BASIX digitally empower over one million smallholder farmers in India
Agricultural produce sales reached nearly INR 180 crores in 2022
Program expanding to service 10 million farmers by 2025
Chennai, 16 January 2023: Mastercard announced that it has reached the milestone of benefiting over one mil lion smallholder farmers in India through Farm Pass, its scalable rural and agriculture digitization solution. Lever aging Farm Pass, Mastercard processed agricultural produce sales worth nearly INR 180 crores in 2022. Workin g with Lawrencedale Agro Processing India (LEAF) and BASIX Social Enterprise Group, the payments tech nolog y firm has now set a target of covering 10 million farmers by 2025.
Since 2020, Mastercard, LEAF and BASIX have partnered to improve digital access and financial inclusion for far mers in four Indian states: Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. With its rich experience a nd expertise in digital and payments technology as well as agritech, in 2023, Mastercard will extend its Farm Pa ss solution to five more states including Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Odisha, Telangana, and West Bengal.
Mastercard’s Farm Pass is a digital ecosystem platform for rural areas that also works offline in remote unconne cted areas and encourages stakeholders in the agriculture sector to come together and serve the farmer commu nity. The platform enables digitization of agricultural marketplaces and farmer data to create a commercially su stainable ecosystem, enabling farmers to be part of the formal economy.
Mastercard and its ecosystem partners are committed to empowering farmers by directly connecting them to buyers, enabling them to achieve greater value for their products, providing access to agronomic knowledge and services, and supporting Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs).
Farm Pass is part of Community Pass, a shared, interoperable digital infrastructure for rural populations. It fac ili tates access to critical services and reduces the cost to serve them for all stakeholders, including governments, ba nks, agricultural entities, and NGOs.
Tara Nathan, Executive Vice President, Humanitarian & Development, Mastercard, said, “Community Pass, whi ch includes Farm Pass, is designed to help smallholder farmers get paid more and faster. Mastercard is proud to have supported one million farmers in India last year. In line with the Government of India’s vision to ensure fina ncial inclusion and double farmers’ income, Community Pass addresses the barriers smallholder farmers face when trying to access reliable markets and financial services.”
Palat Vijayaraghavan, Founder & CEO, LEAF, said, “Leveraging our deep expertise in agritech, this partnership with Mastercard has led to the development of several digital products and solutions that have transformed the lives of smallholder farmers. Through comprehensive training and capacity building programs, we will continue to further empower farmers and make them more resilient.”
D Sattaiah, CEO, BASIX, said, “We are proud to collaborate with Mastercard in our endeavor to empower Indian farmers. BASIX’s Farmers Market (BFM) uses Mastercard’s technology to ensure complete transparency in agri culture transactions and enable greater price realization for farmers.”
Last year, Mastercard announced plans to expand its Farm Pass program to more markets in Asia Pacific in 2023. The company is also in the process of launching a unique agricultural invoice discounting platform, a rural finan cial inclusion card, as well as additional solutions to digitize the rural ecosystem.
Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inc lusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart, and acc ssible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships, and passion, our innovations and solutions help individua ls, financial institutions, governments, and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.
