DBG, partners launch 'Boa Mi' at ICT Sector Financing Roundtable

Development Bank Ghana LTD (DBG), Opportunity International (OI) and the Ghana Incentive-Based Risk-Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (GIRSAL), today jointly launched Boa Mi, an AI-powered agricultural finance platform built into WhatsApp, at the DBG ICT Sector Financing Roundtable in Accra.

Named after the Akan phrase "boa mi", meaning “help me”, the platform gives smallholder farmers and agricultural extension agents instant, evidence-based agronomic guidance, and gives loan officers at financial institutions real-time agricultural portfolio intelligence, through WhatsApp. The platform currently operates in English, with local language versions including Twi, Dagbani, Ewe and Ga in development. Currently, it also works at no additional cost to users.

The platform supports both text and voice, allowing farmers to ask questions and receive guidance in the format most natural to them. The platform, developed under the working name “Farmer AI”, has been piloted among rice farmers, generating more than 8,500 advisory queries in three months and achieving a user satisfaction rate exceeding 75 percent. The result was the highest adoption rate of any Opportunity International Farmer AI deployment across the African continent.

Building on that foundation, the platform is now scaling to six other agricultural commodities and expanding its network of Participating Financial Institutions. The content behind the platform is Ghana-specific and commodity-specific, validated by GIRSAL's agribusiness specialists, to ensure it meets the needs of Ghanaian farming conditions.

Commenting on this development, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of DBG, Randolph Nsor-Ambala said “"Ghana's agricultural sector has been sending one clear message for a very long time; ‘help me’. ‘Boa Mi’ is Ghana's answer,” The CEO added that the platform, “built by three institutions that understand both sides of that message, has been proven in the field by real farmers, and is ready to scale,"

Agricultural lending in Ghana has long been constrained by a two-sided information gap, with farmers lacking timely agronomic guidance while Lending Institutions have limited access to real-time crop and portfolio intelligence.

Boa Mi on the other hand, addresses both challenges simultaneously by providing farmers and agricultural extension agents, instant answers to agronomic questions around pest identification, crop management, weather-related advice and input recommendations, delivered through WhatsApp in plain language, with voice support, at any time of day.

For Financial Institutions, “Boa Mi” serves as a digital de-risking tool that supports credit assessment, monitors active agricultural borrowers during the production cycle and provides early warning of portfolio risk before it becomes loan default.

“The world needs to grow more than twice as much food by 2050, and smallholder farmers are key to reaching that goal,” said Timothy Strong, Head of Agriculture Finance at Opportunity International. “Ghanaian farmers currently produce only 20%–30% of their potential yields. Boa Mi changes that by putting regionally specific, validated agronomic knowledge directly into their hands. Built together with Development Bank Ghana and GIRSAL on technology proven across Africa, Boa Mi is designed for Ghana, helping farmers here grow more, earn more, and reach their fullpotential,”

On his part, Samuel Yeboah, Chief Operating Officer of GIRSAL said, good agronomic advice is tailored to specific crops, seasons, soils, and locations.

“At GIRSAL, we help bridge farmers’ knowledge gaps by providing validated technical information while also reducing credit risk for financial institutions. Every recommendation on Boa Mi is customized for Ghanaian conditions, taking into account ecological variability. This enables better decision-making for farmers, increases productivity, enhances loan performance, and improves access to sustainable agricultural financing,” Yeboah stated.