BENGALURU, 29 April 2023: Fasal, India's leading horticulture-first, full-stack Agri-tech company, today announced its partnership with State Bank of India (SBI), aimed to provide farmers with easy access to capital.

The partnership will help solve cash-flow constraints during key cycles in farming by providing quick, easy, and collateral-free loans at very competitive rates.

This ties into Fasal's larger objective of solving the many challenges across the entire horticulture value chain, thereby paving the way for India's horticultural transformation.

In the 2023 budget, the government announced raising the agriculture credit target by 11 percent to ₹20 lakh crore for FY24. The launch of Fasal's latest financing solution echoes the government's focused efforts toward increasing financial support for farmers across the country.

Through this financing solution, farmers can access collateral-free loans up to three lakhs. The goal is to enable farmers to effectively fund and manage urgent and immediate agri-input needs and adopt Fasal's technology solution to make their farming precise and predictable.

These loans will be disbursed under the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme, well known for its lowest interest rate within the farmer credit support system. This latest offering from Fasal will be initially available in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh and later expand to other regions. Alternatively, if the farmer has already exhausted his/her KCC limit, SBI will enable these financing solutions through other Agri schemes.

Talking about the collaboration, Shantanu Pendsey, CGM, Agriculture Business Unit (ABU), State Bank of India, Corporate Centre, said, "Through this collaborative effort, we will be able to reach out to more farmers across India and offer them timely as well as easy access to financial support. We look forward to working with the Fasal team to financially empower farmers in India." 

Commenting on the partnership, Shailendra Tiwari, Founder of Fasal, said, "Access to quick, easy and low-cost financial support to farmers, as well as horticulturists, will be key as we work to make horticulture a main focus in the country. With SBI's support and their extensive nationwide network in rural areas, we are confident that we can positively impact farmers by providing better access to credit and consequently, bring precision farming to a lot more farmers."

Fasal is leveraging technology to transform the main touchpoints within the horticultural ecosystem, right from input to output.  Today, Fasal works with Indian farmers on over 60,000 acres across 20+ crops.

Through its patented farm-level IoT-driven crop intelligence system, Fasal has been making horticulture farming guesswork-free with advanced irrigation alerts, farm-level micro-climatic forecasts, and pest/disease forewarnings.

The company also recently launched Fasal Fresh, a national procurement network, aimed to ensure fair pricing, streamlined processes, and access to high-quality produce. Fasal Fresh connects farmers, retailers/sellers/partners, and end-consumers by ensuring traceability and transparency throughout the process. 

Shailendra also added, "We want to provide solutions in a more holistic manner across the entire horticulture value chain. This partnership with SBI is yet another step in our collective effort to deliver comprehensive solutions to farmers in India."

From addressing the many supply chain woes to providing access to funds and cutting-edge technology, Fasal empowers farmers to make informed decisions and achieve better yields. With plans to expand this financing solution beyond the initial four states, Fasal is committed to driving positive change by helping farmers grow more, grow better and sell better.