Enhancing Climate Resilience through Remote Sensing, AI, and ML: A Digital Approach to Climate Finance and Practices
Dvara E-Registry (DER) is an AgFinTech startup offering climate finance to smallholder farmers, enabling them to access institutional credit and adopt climate-smart agricultural practices. Challenges Faced by Smallholder Farmers Smallholder farmers face two main challenges: 1. Limited Access to Formal Credit: Of the 140+ million farmers in India, 86% are smallholders with average land holdings of 0.7 hectares. 70% of these farmers lack access to institutional lending forcing them to depend on non-institutional lenders who charge exorbitant interest rates, leading to cycles of debt and poverty. The absence of affordable credit also compels farmers to purchase low-quality, climate-vulnerable agricultural inputs, reducing productivity. 2. Climate and Market-Related Challenges: Agriculture contributes 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions and is highly vulnerable to climate change. The lack of access to extension services, knowledge, and climate-friendly inputs leads to unsustainable practices, such as overuse of fertilizers and pesticides, further degrading soil health. DER’s Innovative Solutions DER addresses these challenges through climate finance solutions, creating collateral-free loan products for smallholder farmers to access institutional credit and adopt sustainable agricultural practices. DER’s approach includes: 1. Digital Platforms for Creditworthiness Assessment: DER uses inhouse digital tools like Khetscore and the Doordrishti platform to assess farmers' creditworthiness. These tools digitize farmer data, provide market insights, and offer credit scores based on historical land analytics using advanced technologies such as AI and remote sensing. - Khetscore is a 3-year historical index evaluating factors like crop health, moisture, soil quality, and weather conditions using indices such as NDVI, GNDVI, NDMI, and NMDI. This alternative credit scoring method helps identify creditworthy farmers for institutional lending. - Doordrishti is a comprehensive platform offering customized crop advisories, weather forecasts, price information, and market linkages to farmers via mobile applications. It helps digitize farmer information, providing actionable insights and improving access to financial services. 2. Climate Finance Products: DER offers differentiated financial products tailored for smallholder farmers empower farmers to purchase climate-resilient seeds, quality inputs, and engage in agri-allied activities, enhancing their income and resilience against climate risks. 3. Climate-Smart Agriculture Promotion: Through the Krishak mobile app, DER offers customized advisories on sustainable agricultural practices. DER also provides access to biological products and climate-resilient seeds. DER is also working with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to promote seed multiplication of climate-resilient seeds, particularly among women farmers. 4. Onboarding farmers on carbon credit program.
Climate And Environmental Technologies
Climate adaptation solutions
Dvara E-Registry (DER) was established in 2019 and developed two key platforms: Khetscore, an analytical tool designed to assess the creditworthiness of smallholder farmers, and Doordrishti, a digital platform aimed at enhancing efficiencies across the agricultural value chain. Following an initial pilot in 2020, DER commenced commercial implementation in 2021.
Dvara E-Registry is actively working in 7 states of India, viz., Maharashtra, Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu to offer its services of climate finance, digital platform and market linkages.
Our innovation stands as a pioneering solution for the following compelling reasons: 1. In-house technology and innovative analytical tools: Dvara E-Registry being a agri fintech startup has built its in-house technology team that works extensively to create and improve the analytical tools that are the need of our intervention. Khetscore and Doordrishti created by our in-house team are innovative tools that harnesses the power of emerging technologies like Remote sensing, AI and ML, algorithms and data to generate actionable insights for the stakeholders across value chain. These tools enhance the operational efficiency, and the digital process makes the whole system robust and pathbreaking for scaling up the interventions exponentially. 2. Holistic Approach: we provide a comprehensive solution encompassing both the Doordrishti and Khetscore platforms. This integrated approach not only grants access to finance but also fosters climate-smart agricultural practices and facilitates crucial market linkages. By addressing multiple facets of agricultural livelihoods, we empower smallholder farmers with a versatile toolkit for sustainable growth and resilience in the face of challenges. We complement our interventions with programs such as Carbon Credit Program, Dairy, Aqua Labs etc. that ensures that the farmers become more resilient to vagaries of weather and their income sources are diversified. 3. End-to-End Credit Solution: We differentiate ourselves by offering an end-to-end solution tailored specifically for smallholder farmers' credit needs. From farmer onboarding and creditworthiness assessment to documentation, credit underwriting, disbursement, and collection, our entire process is seamlessly digitized and conducted at the farmers' doorstep through our dedicated team of field representatives. This streamlined approach ensures that farmers have access to hassle-free credit facilities, empowering them to invest in their farms and livelihoods. In essence, our innovation not only stands out for its holistic and user-centric approach but also for its commitment to empowering smallholder farmers, women and vulnerable groups with comprehensive support and opportunities for growth and prosperity.
Rewards and Recognitions: - Picup Fintech - Best Financing Inclusion Provider - Emerging Institution - 2024 - Water and Energy for Food (WE4F) Grand Challenge for Development - 2024 - World Economic Forum’s Smart Climate Farmers Challenge – 2023 - Inclusive Business Coaching Program – United Nations ESCAP – 2023 - Dun and Bradstreet Start-up 50 Trailblazer Award - 2023 - FICCI – Winner “Most Innovative Agtech – Emerging Startup” – 2022 - FICCI – “Best Agri Start-up – FPO Partnerships” – 2021 - Inclusive Fintech 50 – Inclusive Fintech 50 – 2021 cohort - Inclusive Finance India Awards – Technology for Financial Inclusion 2021
NA
