Advisory services

SMS implements several models to reach smallholder farmers with training and certification, and to deliver value-added services with the goal of effective management, transparency and accountability to its partners.

In every origin, SMS builds long-lasting capacities and relationships for ongoing farmer training through multi-stakeholder partnerships with development agencies, NGOs, our clients and our banks.

Our Certification & Advisory services allow clients to better understand the certificates they buy and to carry out comprehensive programs customised to farmers’ needs. This transactional approach helps to build enduring relationships with rural communities.

Farm management

SMS is leveraging its years of local experience and strong ties with local stakeholders to provide farm management services, tailored to its diverse portfolio of clients.

Our technicians and agronomists provide a complete package of farm management solutions – including weather monitoring, financial and cash flow management and soil analysis – to owners and investors willing to comply with our commitment to sustainability.

Thanks to strong synergies between our portfolio of services and ECOM’s unique network of relationships, we can help manage every step of the crop cycle, from variety selection to quality testing and shipping. Our inclusive management model enables us to tailor our services to our clients’ needs, offering flexibility over the business model. And always with the same dedication toward yielding sustainable value creation.

Financial inclusion

SMS developed micro-finance programs to provide producers with inclusive, affordable and reliable financial services for the continuous improvement of its sustainability solutions. Such services allow for the availability of capital at the appropriate time, affordability of agricultural inputs, and the building of local capacities and knowledge of financial systems.

Our close-knit, local teams are able to share expertise and build strong relationships with clients, creating the foundation for adaptive credit packages and high recovery rates.

Financial inclusion services cover a wide array of products from in-kind packages of farm inputs for increased productivity to cash loans, savings accounts, and pension & insurance for local financial capacity building.

Our ability to build long-term partnerships creates strong and favourable conditions for guaranteeing transparency and adapting to the clients’ needs, thereby encouraging a sustainable customer life cycle. The dense network of access points animated by SMS also allows for the accessibility of services as well as the support and contextual knowledge required for adaptive product delivery.

Plant technology

SMS is able to provide high-quality planting material, on a large scale, that perfectly suits our clients’ needs and expectations.

To support ECOM farmers from the beginning of the growing process, we have partnered with leading scientific institutions to establish a unique structure to support farmers’ land recovery and provide them with affordable, high-quality seedlings.

In 2004, CIRAD and ECOM began a public-private strategic alliance, giving birth to Agritech, ECOM’s laboratory located in Nicaragua. Subsequently, further partnerships were forged, partnering Agritech to World Coffee Research, the World Cocoa Foundation, CATIE and many other national and international institutions.

With a production capacity recently estimated at 1 million embryos per year, Agritech is one of the world’s biggest labs, capable of supplying clients with productive, disease and climate-resistant varieties, preserving an outstanding cup profile. Its diversified catalog of cocoa and coffee varieties offers an unmatched choice to clients and SMS farmers. We promote a sustainable way to foster farms’ renovations and to mitigate the impact of climate change.