Matt Strickland
Tuesday 11 May, 2021
AgriTech | AgriTech solutions | Asia Pacific | Blog | blog | Digitisation of agricultural value chains | English | Financial inclusion for farmers | Innovation Fund | Mobile for Development | Partnership engagement | Sri Lanka
This is the second blog in a series introducing the grantees and key partners supporting The GSMA Innovation Fund for Digitisation of Agricultural Value Chains.
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I’ve heard of mobile money, but I’m not really sure what use it is to me…”
An elderly farmer said during a recent fact-finding visit in the Southern tea growing district of Sri Lanka. “This is a typical response; we’re still trying to strike a balance between driving supply chain optimisation through digitisation and traditional approaches to farming” reflected Srinath Wijayakumara, Product Manager at MNO Dialog Axiata Sri Lanka (Dialog). In 2020, Dialog was awarded a grant under the GSMA Innovation Fund for Digitisation of Agricultural Value Chains (funded by the UK’s FCDO) to test new methods and approaches for driving financial inclusion of smallholder farmers using digital services.