IMPLICATIONS FOR FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS | 83 ‘‡ payments could present other use cases for formal financial services or mobile payments­ ”loser connections to buyers and aggregators in the alue chain could also benefit this profile, and in countries such as anania that hae a robust dig- ital infrastructure, these relationships and serices could be enabled ia digital channels Such services could facilitate the creation of purchase agree- ments or formal contracts, for example, against which smallholders could bor- row for fertili—er, an oft-cited need among the Œan—ania sample households­ FS‚s that offer any type of insurance would need to demonstrate its alue ery early on to build trust, counter scepticism, and distance their product from other negatie e‡periences ˆgricultural insurance may be worth explor- ing, but insurance and insurers had a wea reputation among the sample­ Households are wary of any insurance due to reports of poor service when using the national health insurance card­ Stories abound among the Œan—ania ‰iaries sample where someone has gone to a public hospital with their national health insurance card, only to wait for hours to be served, while someone else who pays for services in cash is immediately assisted­ SOLUTIONS FOR SMALLHOLDERS IN TIGHT VALUE CHAINS: ENGAGING MIDDLEMEN, CHANNELING SAVINGS Smallholders in tight alue chains need financial tools that facilitate their relationships with middlemen and could benefit from mechanisms that reduce their dependence on this one FS‚ Œhe households in the aistan Smallholder ‰iaries had by far the widest, most complex portfolio of financial tools, but a significant portion of their income sources and financial tools flowed through an individual middleman­ Œhere is clearly space for more options on the supply side, but to compete, other service providers would need to match the flexibility and proximity of arthis, or offer better terms and service­ €n the event of crop failure, for example, the arthi will liely agree to be repaid in the following year, while most Ss would not­ Smallholder families may have issues with the middleman, particularly the timing of repayment immediately upon harvest, but they do return to them, at least in absence of a compelling alternative­ Saings is widespread and the opportunity for FS‚s to offer financial tools to harness this is great ™hen smallholder households saved from ¦ctober to ˜ovember and ˆpril to –ay, for example, when agricultural income was high, the largest share of these savings went to arthis or to savings in the house, and of course neither earned any interest­ Šn addition to proiding financial serices alternaties to the middlemen, greater transparency could strengthen and better balance the arthi–small- holder relationship Smallholders could benefit from a short-term loan to repay arthi debt and obtain inputs elsewhere, which would also allow breathing room to tae advantage of price increases as time passes after harvest­ œven when savings are ept with the arthi, digital finance and tools may help farmers