iFarmer, an agri-tech startup that provides agricultural services to improve the lives of farmers, is set to launch a program to provide maize farmers with finance in an approach of contract farming in collaboration with UCBL (United Commercial Bank Limited).
To inaugurate the program, iFarmer and UCBL have scheduled a three-day session in the Char area of three districts of the country (Bogra, Sirajganj, and Gaibandha). During the session, UCBL will collect documents for opening bank accounts from the farmers and open their bank accounts for 10 taka only.
The event will be attended by Mrinal Kanti Joardar, Assistant Vice-President, UCBL Head Office; Kazi Asfaq Hasan, Senior Executive Officer, UCBL Head Office; Jamil M. Akbar, Co-Founder and COO, iFarmer; Tahmid Hasan, Head of Output Market, iFarmer; Joy Bhattacharjee, Head of Financial Services of iFarmer; Kallol Kumar Roy, Senior Manager-Field Operations, iFarmer; Raisul Alam, Head of Business Development, Branding & Marketing, iFarmer; Nahyan Asif Momen, Output Cluster Lead of iFarmer; Md. Raquibuzzaman, Regional Coordinator, iFarmer and Ettesam Bari Rio, Executive, Digital Financial Products, iFarmer.
Through the project, iFarmer aims to help farmers with credit facilities from UCBL. Moreover, iFarmer will ensure providing the farmers with high-quality agricultural inputs, weather updates, and advisory services, and iFarmer's field agents will regularly monitor the farms and report to UCBL to maintain transparency.
At harvest, iFarmer will purchase all the maize from the farmers through their Supply Chain and ensure the repayment.
iFarmer plans to work with a target of 1000 metric tons of maize production this season by financing 1089 farmers under the project.
