Agriculture remains an important means of alleviating poverty, but shortage of finance can constrain its development. At the same time agriculture is evolving towards a global system requiring high-quality, competitive products and organized in value chains which often exclude smallholders. Value chain financing in agriculture offers an opportunity to increase the scope and reduce the cost and risk of financing to agriculture. It can also help value chains become more inclusive, by making resources available for smallholders to integrate into higher value chains.

Agricultural...