The 450 Million Farmer Opportunity: Large-Scale Change Through Smallholder Finance
Speakers
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Senior Vice President, Yara
Sean is the Senior Vice President Global Initiatives, Strategy and Business Development for Yara International the world’s leading global crop nutrition company. He is currently based in Belgium having lived for 12 years in Africa and 7 years in China. Sean is recognised as both a leading social entrepreneur and intrapreneur.
Sean is currently co - chair of the WEF New Vision for Agriculture. He was recently on a 3 month secondment as Special Advisor Office to the UN Special Representative to the Secretary General on Food Security and Nutrition. He was the founding co-chair of Grow Africa and remains on the executive steering committee. He is a member of the Global Agenda Council on Climate Change. Sean also sits on the executive committee of the African Green Revolution Forum, he is initiator of both the Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor, Mozambique and Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania as well as visiting practitioner at Harvard Kennedy School CSR Initiative.
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Head, Global Agriculture and Food Security Porgram, International Finance Corporation
Worldwide, roughly 450 million smallholder farmers scrape out a living by working two hectares of land or less. Figuring out how to reliably get inputs and financing to farmers and make them more productive is essential for both eliminating poverty and for achieving food security.
It isn’t easy. Reaching farmers at scale requires convincing private investors to overlook weak institutions, inefficient financial markets, and economic and political instability, and make a bet on some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. Fortunately, with the help of willing partners, we are starting to do it.
Blended finance, the mixing of public, philanthropic, and private capital in emerging and frontier markets, can bridge the gap between skeptical investors and financing needs in order to address global challenges like poverty, food security, and climate change.
Laura Mecagni heads the private sector window of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program managed by IFC. This program makes available innovative financing solutions to support private companies engaged in agribusiness and agricultural programs that improve the livelihood of small hold farmers.
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Fund Manager Triodos Sustainable Trade Fund, Triodos Bank
Fund manager Triodos Sustainable Trade Fund - Michaël van den Berg joined Triodos Bank as Fund Manager for the Triodos Sustainable Trade Fund in August 2013. He has over 10 years of emerging markets investment experience with a focus on SME finance, off-grid renewable energy investments and inclusive finance. Prior to joining Triodos Bank, Michaël worked for Triple Jump as Regional Manager for Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Asia, heading the investment team. Michaël started his career at consulting firm Boer & Croon and worked as an Account Manager for the Dutch branch of Triodos Bank, managing a credit portfolio in organic retail and wind energy.
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Willy Foote is founder and CEO of Root Capital, a nonprofit that offers farmers around the world a path to prosperity by investing in the agricultural businesses that serve as engines of impact in their communities. Root Capital provides these businesses with the capital, training, and access to markets they need in order to grow, thrive, and create opportunities for thousands of farmers at a time. Since its founding in 1999, Root Capital has provided more than $1.7 billion in loans to 770 agricultural businesses in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Together, these businesses have bought and marketed crops for 2.4 million smallholder farmers, reaching over 10 million people in rural communities.
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Senior Advisor, Global Development Incubator
Tom is a Senior Advisor at GDI, where he works directly with rural enterprise development efforts. Tom focuses on GDI’s incubated initiatives in this space: ISF Advisors, Aceli Africa, the Rural & Agricultural Finance Learning Lab, and the Council on Smallholder Finance (CSAF). This includes the development and application of products and services for small agricultural enterprises, including finance, digital technology, and education. His efforts aim to make the economics of environmentally sound, community-led rural enterprise development sustainable.
Previously, Tom was a Partner at Dalberg Advisors where he led a strategy consulting portfolio that included efforts such as comprehensive investment/market entry analyses of global and regional commodity markets; the development of public-private partnerships across a host of those markets; the commercialization of agriculture technologies; and the design of innovative financing mechanisms in frontier markets. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Aceli Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya, and EarthEnable, based in Kigali, Rwanda. Tom holds an MBA from Yale School of Management and a BA in government from the University of Notre Dame.
