Improving the lending potential of credit providers in southern Africa 

The GroWise product called GRID is a Crop Growth Index (CGI) for a variety of common African crops. The service aims at assessing how well small-scale farmers' crops are performing and gives agricultural credit providers the ability to intervene with agronomic advice to secure their return on investment. The main customers of the GRID service are agricultural credit providers, contract farming companies and insurers that supply credit in the form of money, seed, fertiliser or pesticides to small-scale farmers. The service is modelled on a crop-specific basis using SAR data, optical satellite data and precision weather information.