Kiva conducts regular, ongoing monitoring of all Lending Partners, but only posts status updates here in response to relevant, major changes at the partner.
 

Partner description:

Mountain Lion Agriculture is a social enterprise working to help smallholder farmers in Sierra Leone grow and succeed. The organization helps these farmers out of cycles of subsistence-only farming by supporting them during production and then buying their raw rice at a fair price.

Mountain Lion Agriculture’s business model is based on 3 key pillars: high quality rice-milling, a loyalty program for farmers and building relationships in the community. This model enhances the value chain for smallholder farmers by offering input supplies, 0% interest in-kind seed loans, free training for suppliers, machine hire services and a 250 acre model farm used to educate farmers.

 

A unique lending approach:

Mountain Lion Agriculture provides 0% interest loans to contract farmers in the form of quality seeds at the beginning of planting season. In order to guarantee good harvest, Mountain Lion Agriculture also provides an option of machine leasing services to these farmers for ploughing, farrowing and harvesting at an extra fee that can either be paid upfront or recovered from the harvest. The loans are usually payable in 6 months based on the rice-growing cycle. During harvest season, Mountain Lion Agriculture provides full transportation of paddy rice from the farms to their milling factory at no cost.