Access to Seeds Index is mentioned in the report ‘Inflection Point’, which explores financial services provided to smallholders.
“Financial service providers, such as value chain actors and mobile network operators, typically do not require external subsidy, but rather rely on internal (cross) subsidy, i.e., using returns from other parts of their business to support smallholder finance. For many of these companies, engaging in such cross-subsidization typically serves a core business need, such as ensuring a reliable supply of produce or attracting customers who are expected to graduate to higher value products. In other cases, corporate social responsibility may be a key driver; the Access to Seed Index—recently launched with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Dutch Ministries of Economic and Foreign Affairs—which ranks seed companies by measuring and comparing their efforts to improve access to seeds for smallholder farmers, relies on such motivation to drive change.”
