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In 1983, Muhammad Yunus lent $27 to 42 women in a village called Jobra in Bangladesh. The loans were repaid. Grameen Bank was founded. The microlending movement was born. Four decades later, the global microfinance market is valued at over $260 billion, with projections to surpass $640 billion by 2033. More than 7,000 microfinance institutions operate worldwide, serving tens of millions of borrowers across every developing region on earth. Yunus won a Nobel Prize. The industr

The $200 billion agricultural credit gap will not close with more lending programmes. It will close when someone builds the FICO score for farming. In 1956 William Fair and Earl Isaac had an idea that would reshape the global economy: use data to predict whether a borrower would repay. Their product was a literal scorecard, made of cardboard, filled in by loan officers and totted up by hand. Within three decades their company had partnered with Equifax, Experian, and TransUni

The Quiet Revolution in Rural Finance: Why Smallholder Credit Still Eludes the Formal System The ADBI working paper that crossed my desk this week is, on the surface, a technical study of agricultural finance in developing Asia. Read more carefully, it is a quiet indictment of how the formal financial system has failed the people who feed it. The paper assembles evidence from across South and Southeast Asia and arrives at a conclusion that anyone working in rural credit will

The global food system is about to be tested again — and the institutions responsible for protecting the world's most vulnerable farmers are flying blind. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed since late February. Nearly two million tonnes of fertiliser are stuck behind a blockade that shows no signs of lifting. The blockaded region accounts for roughly 30% of globally traded fertiliser, 20% of liquefied natural gas — a key feedstock in fertiliser production — and

AGXL | April 2026 In 2025, Cambodia's agriculture sector had its best year on record. The Kingdom exported 12 million tonnes of agricultural products to 95 countries, worth $5.3 billion. Nearly 600,000 tonnes of milled rice reached global markets. Cashew exports surged — Cambodia is now the world's second-largest cashew producer, with the sector alone generating over $1.5 billion, equivalent to 3% of GDP. Rubber, pepper, cassava, mango, and vegetables added billions more. The

In 2025, the Philippines posted its strongest agricultural output in eight years. Total production reached ₱1.77 trillion — a 2.6% expansion that outpaced official targets. Poultry led the charge, growing 9.1% to ₱304.71 billion. Crops climbed 2.8% to nearly ₱1 trillion. The Agriculture Secretary described the country as laying the groundwork for smarter, climate-resilient farming. The momentum is real. The policy commitment is real. The institutional infrastructure — coopera

Laos is a country of hidden potential. It produces some of the finest Arabica coffee in Southeast Asia, exports agricultural goods to over 26 countries, and sits at the crossroads of a $6 billion railway connecting China to ASEAN. Its government has designated agriculture as a national strategic priority under its Agricultural Development Strategy 2025 and Vision 2030. International development agencies are pouring resources into its farming communities. Over 80 companies — d

There is a $200 billion question sitting at the centre of global food security, and almost nobody outside the development finance world is talking about it. Every year, smallholder farmers across Asia, Africa, and Latin America need approximately $323 billion in credit. They receive $95 billion. The gap — over $200 billion annually — is not a rounding error. It is the single largest structural barrier between the developing world and a stable food supply. These are not abstra