It’s no secret that farming is a highly capital intensive business and if you are a farmer looking for funding to start or expand your business, the following companies may just be the best place to start:

1. Capital Harvest
   Capital Harvest is a niche agricultural finance company based in Cape Town that focuses only on agricultural finance. Their financing model is similar to those of commercial banks, however, the difference with them is that they provide tailor-made financing options for farmers and view “risk” in agriculture different to the commercial banks. Their financing products range from revolving credit loans, term loans, production loans and funding specifically geared towards emerging farmers.
2. AgFunder
   AgFunder is a venture capital firm based in the US that has a global community of over 70 000 members. Their mission is to invest in technologies that rapidly transform the food and agricultural system. Farmers can directly benefit from this platform, as the investors have a large appetite for agricultural businesses, internationally.

3. Livestock Wealth
   Livestock Wealth is a crowdfunding platform that assists livestock farmers to access finance through investors and sustain their farms or farm assets. In addition to the financing, they also provide market access for farmers to sell their produce to the listed food outlets that they have partnered with, provide quality animal healthcare as well as animal tracking protection.

4. Agrikool
   Agrikool finance is another digital crowdfunding platform that links small scale farmers to investors and market access opportunities. How it works is that investors invest in a farm and they get their returns on investment from the produce that’s harvested and sold to formal and informal markets. Farmers also get to benefit from this platform as they manage logistics, providing efficient and reliable transport.

5. iThala
   iThala is a development finance corporation that’s based in KZN with integrated business solutions varying from financial to property services. Under their Business Finance portfolio, financing is made available to Agriculture and Agro-Processing and their funding solutions include the following: land and fixed improvements, working capital, equipment and livestock finance to name a few.

Let me know if you’ve found this post helpful and remember that several other organisations offer financial assistance to farmers which are not mentioned above.