‘Fasal’ Partners With SBI to Provide Farmers With Easier Access to Loans

Fasal, an agri-tech business, has teamed up with the State Bank of India (SBI) to give Indian farmers simple access to finance. The goal is to help solve cash-flow constraints during key cycles in farming by offering quick, simple, and collateral-free loans at highly competitive rates. This initiative is part of Fasal's broader objective of addressing challenges across the horticulture value chain to pave the way for India's horticultural transformation.

The Indian government announced in the 2023 budget that it would increase the agriculture credit target by 11% to 20 lakh crore for the fiscal year 2024. Fasal's latest financing solution aligns with the government's focused efforts to provide greater financial support to farmers across the country. Farmers can now access collateral-free loans up to three lakhs, which will allow them to fund and manage urgent and rapid agri-input needs and utilize Fasal's technology solution to make their farming more precise and predictable.

These loans will be made available through the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme, which is known for offering the lowest interest rates among farmer credit support systems. This financing option will be offered initially in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh before being expanded to additional states. Alternatively, SBI will enable farmers to access these financing options through other agri-schemes if they have already exhausted their KCC limit.

Shantanu Pendsey, CGM, Agriculture Business Unit (ABU), State Bank of India, Corporate Centre, expressed his pleasure in collaborating with Fasal, a leader in providing innovative solutions to the horticulture community. Through this partnership, they can reach out to more farmers across India and provide them with timely and easy access to financial assistance.

Shailendra Tiwari, Founder of Fasal, added that access to quick, easy, and affordable financial assistance for farmers and horticulturists would be crucial as they work towards making horticulture a primary focus in the country. They are convinced that with SBI's assistance and their broad national network in rural areas, they can favourably benefit farmers by improving finance access and, as a result, offer precision farming to more farmers.

Fasal uses technology to transform the main touchpoints across the horticultural ecosystem, from input to output. The company currently works with Indian farmers on over 60,000 acres of land across more than 20 crops. Fasal's patented farm-level IoT-driven crop intelligence system eliminates guesswork from horticulture farming by providing advanced irrigation alerts, farm-level micro-climatic forecasts, and pest/disease forewarnings.

Fasal Fresh, a national procurement network that provides fair pricing, faster processes, and access to high-quality fruit, was just introduced by the company. By assuring traceability and transparency throughout the process, Fasal Fresh connects farmers, retailers/sellers/partners, and end-consumers.

According to Shailendra, Fasal aims to provide solutions more holistically across the entire horticulture value chain. This partnership with SBI is another step in their collective effort to deliver comprehensive solutions to farmers in India.

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