DBG, partners launch AI platform to transform agricultural financing

Accra, Sept. 11, GNA – Development Bank Ghana Limited (DBG) and its partners have launched an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered agricultural finance platform to improve access to timely agronomic advice and sustainable financing for smallholder farmers.

Known as “Boa Mi”, meaning “help me” in Akan, the platform provides farmers and agricultural extension agents with instant, evidence-based agronomic guidance, while giving loan officers real-time agricultural portfolio intelligence through WhatsApp.

The initiative, led by DBG, Opportunity International (OI) and the Ghana Incentive-Based Risk-Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (GIRSAL), was launched at the DBG ICT Sector Financing Roundtable in Accra.

A release shared with the Ghana News Agency said the platform, developed under the working name “Farmer AI”, had been piloted among rice farmers, generating more than 8,500 advisory queries in three months and recording a user satisfaction rate of 75 per cent.

The platform currently operates in English, with local language versions, including Twi, Dagbani, Ewe and Ga, under development.

It also supports text and voice interactions and currently comes at no additional cost to users, enabling farmers to ask questions and receive guidance in the format most convenient to them.

Officials said the platform would be extended to six other agricultural commodities and its network of participating financial institutions expanded.

The content powering the platform is Ghana-specific and commodity-specific, and has been validated by GIRSAL’s agribusiness specialists to ensure its relevance to local farming conditions.

Professor Randolph Nsor-Ambala, Chief Executive Officer of DBG, said the platform had been tested by real farmers and was “ready to scale”.

“Ghana’s agricultural sector has been sending one clear message for a very long time; ‘help me’. ‘Boa Mi’ is Ghana’s answer,” he said.

Mr Samuel Yeboah, Chief Operating Officer of GIRSAL, said the platform provided agronomic advice tailored to specific crops, seasons, soils and locations.

He said GIRSAL would continue to provide validated technical information to farmers while helping to reduce credit risk for financial institutions.

The platform, he said, would support farmers’ decision-making, increase productivity, improve loan performance and enhance access to sustainable agricultural financing.

Mr Timothy Strong, Head of Agriculture Finance at Opportunity International, said smallholder farmers were critical to meeting the world’s future food needs.

“The world needs to grow more than twice as much food by 2050, and smallholder farmers are key to reaching that goal,” he said.

Mr Strong said Ghanaian farmers currently produced only 20 to 30 per cent of their potential yields, adding that Boa Mi would put regionally specific and validated agronomic knowledge directly into their hands.

He said agricultural lending in Ghana had long been constrained by an information gap, with farmers lacking timely agronomic guidance while lending institutions had limited access to real-time crop and portfolio intelligence.

“Boa Mi is designed for Ghana, helping farmers here grow more, earn more, and reach their full potential,” he said.

Boa Mi is compatible with any WhatsApp-capable mobile handset, making it accessible to farmers using basic mobile devices.

DBG is Ghana’s wholesale development finance institution, providing long-term concessional financing to 21 participating financial institutions for on-lending to Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and small corporates across the productive sectors.

The sectors include agribusiness, manufacturing, ICT and high-value services such as education, tourism and healthcare.

Since 2022, the Bank has disbursed more than GHS2.5 billion to 942 enterprises, contributing to an estimated 41,000 jobs supported.

Opportunity International is a global non-profit organisation that creates opportunities for entrepreneurs, businesses, farmers and families to address generational poverty.

For more than 50 years, the organisation has developed programmes using financial services, training and other support to address challenges facing people living in poverty.

GIRSAL is a non-banking financial institution established to de-risk agricultural financing and stimulate increased lending to the agricultural sector by financial institutions in Ghana.
GNA

Edited by Beatrice Asamani Savage