Only about 14 percent of Zambia's 1.5 million smallholder farmers are formally banked. The problem is not that farmers are too risky to lend to. It is that lenders cannot see them.
Invisible, not unbankable
A smallholder farmer may farm the same land for twenty years, sell every harvest, and repay every obligation, and still have no record that a bank can read. No statements, no verified income, no collateral history. Lenders decline what they cannot see, and so the most reliable people in the rural economy are priced as if they were the least.
What actually changes it
Financial inclusion does not start with a loan. It starts with a trusted market. When a farmer has a guaranteed, fair buyer, every sale becomes a verified transaction. Recorded season after season, those transactions become exactly what a lender needs: evidence of production, income and reliability. Identity first, then credit.
How DNC does it
DNC buys maize from smallholder farmers in Zambia’s Eastern Province at a fair price and pays quickly. Every purchase is GPS-tagged and recorded in Panjiia, our platform, building each farmer’s financial identity with every sale. On that foundation we have begun input finance, and our early lending has maintained a zero-default repayment record. Around 60 percent of the farmers we work with are women.
Work with us
We work with funders, lenders, researchers and partners who take the long view on rural prosperity. Write to us through the contact page, or read our approach in full.