How it works

The pieces exist. Nothing has connected them.

In agriculture the scarce thing has always been judgement: knowing whether a field will produce, and whether a season can carry a loan. Tanzania has built the tools that reduce the risk of lending to agriculture. What has been missing is one intelligence to thread them together and put them, as one capability, in the hands of everyone a season depends on. That is how we mean to unlock agricultural finance in East Africa, starting with Tanzania's smallholder farmers, through value chain finance and group lending.

This page says what LitFin Intelligence does and why, what works today and what is being built. A person and a licensed institution always make the decision.

What already exists

The environment that reduces the risk of lending to agriculture is already here.

Nobody needs to invent it. Over many years each of these was built, and each one works.

Guarantee schemes

Stand behind part of a loan, so a lender can say yes to a borrower it could not carry alone.

A development lender

Lends to agriculture where others do not yet go, and shares risk with the lenders that follow.

Banks and microfinance institutions

Hold the products a season needs: input loans, group loans and value chain finance.

Leasing providers

Finance the equipment a farm cannot buy outright.

Insurers

Cover the perils a season cannot carry on its own, such as weather.

Cooperatives

Bring growers together to buy inputs and sell a crop as one.

Savings groups

Members save and lend among themselves, by rules they keep themselves.

Warehouse receipts

Turn a stored crop into something a lender will lend against.

It was built piece by piece, and the pieces do not meet.

Each one knows its own part. The guarantor knows the loans it covers. The lender knows its own borrowers. The cooperative knows its members. Nobody sees all of it at the moment a lender decides, so the same season is put together by hand, file by file, and often too late for planting. Until now there was no central intelligence to thread the pieces together, because the judgement that could do it sat with a few people who could be in one place at a time.

Where LitFin Intelligence sits

Behind that environment, connecting it.

LitFin Intelligence does not replace a guarantor, a lender, an insurer or a cooperative, and it does not compete with them. It sits behind them and connects them, so that the people a season depends on do not have to find one another and make the market themselves. It never lends, holds money, insures or guarantees. Because it has no stake in the answer, every party can rely on what it shows.

The pieces that reduce the risk of lending to agriculture, and LitFin Intelligence behind themSeparate pieces stand side by side: guarantee schemes, a development lender, banks and microfinance institutions, leasing providers, insurers, cooperatives, savings groups and warehouse receipts. Behind all of them is one layer, LitFin Intelligence, with a thread running from it to every piece.What already exists, built piece by pieceGuaranteeschemesA developmentlenderBanks andmicrofinanceinstitutionsLeasingprovidersInsurersCooperativesSavings groupsWarehousereceiptsLitFin IntelligenceThe layer behind, connecting every piece
The pieces already exist. LitFin Intelligence is the layer behind them that threads them into one chain. The connecting layer is being built.

Today this works on the lender's side. The layer that connects the whole chain is being built.

What it is

Two careers of judgement, joined to an AI consultant. Together, that is Mwikila.

LitFin Intelligence is a combination of two things. The first is more than four decades of real experience and judgement from two careers: one in banking and credit, the other in agricultural production. The second is an AI-powered, PhD-level consultant in agriculture, agricultural value chains and their financing. Put together, that is Mwikila, the AI Senior Agriculture & Finance Consultant: the one everyone on the chain talks to, in English or Swahili.

  • The farmer, the group, the supplier, the off-taker, the buyer, the lender, the guarantor and the insurer all meet the same mind, each in their own role
  • He explains every conclusion, and every finding can show what it rests on
  • He is not tied to any one AI model
  • A person always makes the decision

The three layers

How the lender thinks. How the farm works. And Mwikila between them.

Finance fails in agriculture when two kinds of judgement are not in the same place at the same time. LitFin Intelligence puts a layer between them that holds both.

The three layersThree layers, one above another. At the top, how the lender thinks. At the bottom, how the farm and the farmer work. Between them is Mwikila, the AI Senior Agriculture & Finance Consultant, with the village-based agronomists as his extension on the ground. What the lender needs to see travels down through the middle layer, and evidence from the ground travels up through it.How the lender thinksMwikila, with the village-basedagronomistsHow the farm and the farmer workWhat the lenderneeds to seeEvidence from thegroundVillage-basedagronomists
Mwikila sits between the lender and the farm, and the village-based agronomists carry him to the field. The middle layer is being built.

How the lender thinks

What a lender asks, what it needs to see, and what conditions unlock financing. This is where we started, and it is what works today.

Mwikila, with the village-based agronomists

The layer between. Mwikila carries both kinds of judgement to everyone on the chain, and the village-based agronomists are his extension on the ground. Being built.

How the farm and the farmer work

What a plot can produce, what a season costs, when the crop comes in, and what can go wrong between planting and sale.

What it produces

Confidence in a chain.

What LitFin Intelligence produces is confidence that everyone in a value chain can share: every participant has been examined for the role they play in that chain, and every finding shows what it rests on.

Every participant, for their role

A person, a group of people, a company or a group of companies. Each is assessed in their own right for the part they play in this chain, not in general.

Every finding shows what it rests on

No finding is a bare opinion. Each one points to the document, the record or the visit behind it, so anyone relying on it can check it.

The same evidence gives the same finding

A finding does not depend on who asked or on the day they asked. If the evidence has not changed, neither has the answer.

What the layer does

What it does, and why.

Each line says what LitFin Intelligence does and why it matters. The first works today. The rest are being built.

It appraises.

A lender finances what it can see. Credit appraisal, underwriting and risk analysis turn a file into a case a committee can question line by line. This works today.

It closes the knowledge gap for everyone.

Whether a project is viable, what a lender will ask, what is missing and what to do next. Every participant is told, in their own language, without exception.

It composes the chain a season needs.

Often a chain is missing a link. LitFin Intelligence finds and connects the supplier, the growers, the off-taker, the cover and the lender, so they do not have to make the market themselves.

It helps groups form and organise.

A lender cannot appraise every smallholder one by one. A group formed around what its members want, with documents a lender can rely on, is a borrower it can finance.

It assesses every participant in their own right.

A grower's loan rests on the supplier delivering and the off-taker paying. So each is examined for the role they play in this chain.

The village-based agronomists verify and advise on the ground.

Some things can only be known by standing on the plot. What a participant said is confirmed where it happened.

It follows the season.

A loan is decided once and a season runs for months. A problem seen in time can still be acted on.

A person and a licensed institution always decide.

LitFin Intelligence never lends, holds money, insures or guarantees. It prepares the case, and the lender decides whether to lend.

Helping people get ready

The same steps, for anyone who must be organised first.

Some participants must be organised before they can take part or be financed: a farmer whose farm is not yet run as a business, a person who wants to farm, a group, a small supplier, a small off-taker or buyer, a service provider, a small agribusiness, and the chain itself. The pattern is the same each time. This part is being built.

  1. Structure

    Formed around what the members want: their purpose, needs, goals and capabilities. There is no fixed kind of group.

  2. Documents drafted to a lender's standard

    LitFin Intelligence helps draft the constitution and the agreements a lender expects to see.

  3. Their own advocate, their own signatures

    The members take the drafts to an advocate of their choosing, sign them and upload the signed documents. LitFin Intelligence drafts. It does not give legal advice, sign, stamp or stand in for the advocate.

  4. Status everyone on the chain can see

    Each document shows as done, in progress or missing.

  5. Assessed, then confirmed on the ground

    The intelligence assesses every uploaded document. A village-based agronomist then confirms that it matches reality: these are the real members, their details are right, the advocate is real and the signing happened. The step is marked done once it has been assessed and confirmed.

The chain itself is set out the same way: who fills which role, what each has committed to, the calendar, and the order in which money is paid out.

Lenders, leasing providers, guarantors and insurers are not structured by us. They are licensed institutions with their own structures. We work to their rules and give them the full view.

How a chain is cleared

The agronomist confirms. Only the intelligence clears.

Clearing a whole chain is the centre of the full system, and it is being built. It is designed so that no one person can wave a chain through.

  1. Everything required is submitted and weighed

    The intelligence checks that each participant has submitted what their role requires, weighs it, and compares it with official registries where those can be checked, such as business registration and identity. We claim no connection to any registry.

  2. The agronomist goes to the ground with that analysis

    A village-based agronomist starts a chain's evaluation and ends it. They compare what the intelligence holds with what is actually there and with what people say, and bring back what they find.

  3. A disagreement raises a flag

    If what the agronomist reports disagrees with what the intelligence holds to be true, a flag is raised, and the chain is not cleared until the flag is settled. So persuading an agronomist achieves nothing: the evidence has to satisfy the intelligence.

  4. LitFin Intelligence clears

    Each participant as right for their role, and the chain as ready. The agronomist does not clear anything.

Cleared means ready to be put in front of a lender. The lender still decides whether to lend. LitFin Intelligence never lends, holds money, insures or guarantees.

What everyone sees

Everyone on the chain sees the full chain, live.

This is being built. Every participant sees the whole chain they are part of, for as long as it runs: who is in it, what each has committed to, each update, each step completed, each check done, each flag raised and settled, from the start of the season to settlement, and what every status rests on.

What everyone sees

For every participant and every step: done, missing, checked or flagged, and what that status rests on.

What stays private

A participant's private details, such as financial history. The others see that an item is done or missing, not what is in it.

Who sees the details

The parties whose job is to assess them, such as the lender, who have signed the data and privacy agreements to do so.

Who stays in control

The participant. They can open their details to a chosen party, or to everyone on the chain, if they wish.

The village-based agronomists

The hands and the physical presence of LitFin Intelligence.

A village-based agronomist is trained in agriculture and based where the farmers are. The intelligence does most of the work: it reads, weighs, asks and plans. The agronomist carries it to the field. Whatever a participant tells or hands an agronomist goes to LitFin Intelligence, which does the analysis and tells the agronomist how to move forward. The two are one and the same.

That is what makes them strong. Each one carries the judgement of the two careers and an AI-powered consultant versed in agriculture as a whole, for East Africa. An agronomist is never working alone or from memory.

We plan to recruit them from among the graduates of Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania's agricultural university in Morogoro. That is a plan of ours. Nothing has been agreed with the university.

This part is being built. No agronomist is in the field yet.

Where we are

What works today, and what is being built.

Works today
  • Credit appraisal, underwriting and risk analysis for agricultural lending: for an individual loan, a group loan, or a whole portfolio
  • Preparing the case of a farmer, a group or an agribusiness to the standard a lender expects
  • In English or Swahili, with every finding showing what it rests on
Being built
  • Clearing a whole value chain as one case, with every participant assessed for their role
  • Helping groups and other participants form, organise and draft documents to a lender's standard
  • Village-based agronomists on the ground
  • The full chain visible to everyone on it, live, for the whole season
  • Following a financed season from planting to settlement

Tanzania's smallholder farmers first. East Africa next.

We are an early-stage company in Dar es Salaam. Today we work only in Tanzania. LitFin Intelligence is built for East Africa, and our plan is to reach every East African country.

We name no lender, guarantor, lessor or insurer on this page, and we publish no figure we cannot source.

If you know this field, tell us where we are wrong.

We would rather hear it now. And if you are one of the people a season depends on, see what this does for you today and what is being built.

Talk to usWho it is for