Sustainable microfinance outreach for farmers with blockchain cryptocurrency and smart contracts

In the process of cultivation, from the point of deciding to plant a certain crop to the point of selling harvest to the market, farmers incur many expenses at different stages of the crop life cycle. 75% of smallholder farmers around the world includes the world's poorest. Most of them face constraints in getting finance to cover such costs. Microfinance, a method of offering small loans to the marginal, has evolved as a major institutional source to provide financial facilities to such people. Although there is ample evidence showing that microfinance has a positive impact on economic activities, securing the livelihood of the marginal people by uplifting their economic status, it can be a dilemma at the same time, since the severe indebtedness caused by microfinance loans has led impoverished communities to economic, social, and environmental vulnerabilities. In this paper, we present a blockchain-based conceptual model for sustainable microfinance outreach for farmers where the microfinance institutes can dynamically adjust the loans they provide according to the farmer's actions resulting in a reduction in severe indebtedness and vulnerabilities while smoothing the crop cultivation process leading to better farm outputs and income.