G20 Roundtable Highlights the Importance of Agricultural Finance

9 September 2015. Antalya, Turkey. The first G20 Round Table on Innovations in Agricultural Finance took place ahead of the G20 GPFI Forum and Plenary.

The agricultural sector is essential for food security, job creation and overall economic growth. However, the potential is largely untapped and agriculture in developing countries is still characterized by low productivity. There is a strong need to sustainably modernize the agricultural sector in developing countries. This, however, comes with a heavy demand for investment capital and providing sustainable financial services for rural areas and agriculture has proven to be extremely difficult.

At the Round Table, 5 new studies on the following subjects were presented:

• Innovations and Emerging Trends in Agricultural Insurance,
• New Trends in Financing Agricultural Value Chains
• Digital Technology, Financial Services, and Smallholder Farmers,
• Financing for Women in the Agricultural Sector, and
• Understanding Smallholder Demand, Driving Innovation.

You can find a list of speakers here.

A central theme of the event was the role of innovative digital technologies in transforming agrifinance. "Digital technologies have helped to lower credit risk, reduce costs and make the delivery of financial services more efficient. This has expanded the range of financial services available to smallholder families in emerging markets," said Michael Tarazi, senior financial sector specialist at the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP).

The G20 Agricultural Finance Roundtable was organized in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), BMZ, GIZ and SME Finance Forum. The outcomes of the roundtable will form a G20 synthesis report on new trends and innovations in agricultural finance.