SBIR-STTR Award

Agcredit Consulting LLC is developing a SaaS digital agriculture lending application to attract and retain next generation producers bankers and educators in frontier and remote (FAR) regions. Its first customer would be agCredit bank one of the first federally regulated FinTech companies. In Nebraska alone small-rural-located community bank charters have consolidated from 425 thirty years ago to less than 170 today. The FSA has significantly reduced its farm lenders in this same time span. Wyoming for example has only 6 lenders that cover the entire state limiting their lending capabilities. Many FAR areas lack sufficient access to lenders (and credit) to build and sustain the next generation of farmers and ranchers. Initially the lending portal will target small and mid-sized farmers and ranchers located in FAR areas to (1) improve accessibility to lenders and credit and (2) develop farm/ranch management skills. Objectives: 1. Create an MVP producer/lender digital portal with software developers to open user accounts share information and engage communication.2. Envision and plan for the next round of features for follow-on to Phase II. Align the data management plan to envisioned features.3. Assess the impacts of the proposed project on the socio-economic development of rural areas. It is anticipated the MVP will be a feasible and effective means to reduce lending costs for banks and increase access to credit by producers. It will be licensed to community banks as a means of commercialization.

Agcredit Consulting LLC (agCredit) is developing a collaborative business model and customer-facing agricultural digital lending application for rural-based community banks to attract and retainagricultural producers.From 2012 to 2017 more than 40 percent of rural counties lost bank branches (Federal Reserve2019). In rural areas there are less than 2 banks per 100 sq miles with deeply affected areas having0.3 per 100 sq miles (Federal Reserve 2019). When banks close it greatly impacts access to credit(Nguyen 2019). Community banks fund approximately 80 percent of all agricultural productionloans providing a critical contribution to sustaining rural economies (ICBA 2017).Moreoverbanks provide jobs sponsor youth sports teams and support small town nonprofits. Many newnonbank ag lenders target the largest producers leaving small family-sized producers (88% of allfarms) and those in rural areas which tend to have a higher minority and low-income rate asunderserved with limited access to credit.Objectives include:1:agCredit in collaboration with four beta banks and USDA FSA Nebraska State Office willvalidate the EasyLoan Scorecard model.2: agCredit in collaboration with Don't Panic Labs will implement at least four features that willimprove process efficiency financial literacy and access to credit.3: The agCredit team will develop the product roadmap that includes added features and budget forcommercialization and will evaluate licensing needs.4:agCredit will identify three cloud-based core system providers to commercialize agCredit.bankthat provide producer and lender portal access loan portfolio accounting facilitation of paymentsdata storage etc.