The problem

In Nepal, smallholder dairy farmers depend on stable rainfall to produce livestock feed because they cannot afford to buy commercial feed. Due to global warming, changing rainfall patterns reduce livestock forage production, leading to lower milk production. Dominated by micro and small collection-and-processing units, the dairy farming sector lacks access to finance to grow more fodder, adopt alternative sources of fuel (such as biogas production), purchase agriculture insurance, and use better refrigeration technology.

In general, informal sector micro-entrepreneurs face insurmountable hurdles accessing affordable business financing as they lack credit histories, income proof, or assets for loan collateral. As such, they often lack the means to adopt available technologies that can increase their resilience against climate change.

The company

Founded in 2019, Aloi’s goal is to help informal sector entrepreneurs access business finance focused on green sectors. Aloi’s technology increases the trust of lenders to lend to micro-entrepreneurs through automatic loan monitoring and alternative credit data.

Project description

This project helps dairy farmers access training and loans to adopt climate-smart milk production practices, including using community forestry land and agro-forestry for fodder production, biogas production from manure for domestic energy use, water conservation techniques, and solar panels for cooling storage.

For dairy farmers interested in accessing finance, Aloi helps them create digital credit profiles. The loans are disbursed digitally using Aloi’s technology to monitor fund use via the accredited vendor ecosystem which is aggregated and linked with financial institutions for approval. Aloi also works with milk traders to digitise the payments to dairy farmers to track their income and loans.

Founders

Quote from Founder

“The biggest gap between micro-entrepreneurs and the rapidly growing green economy is access to finance. For a truly inclusive green economy that powers climate action at the last-mile, we must find ways to build trust to invest in grassroots entrepreneurship. Aloi’s technology provides a bridge of trust between the informal and formal economy.”

Team

20 staff memebers.