It’s no secret that rural areas in Central and Eastern Europe are struggling. Low crop yields and a lack of financing are the main issues. But a Latvian start-up is aiming to change that.

The agricultural crowdfunding platform LendSecured announces a brand merger with Lande, the credit platform for farmers.

We have received a written authorisation from regulator (FCMC) to continue providing Crowdfunding Services.

Traditional lending has an ironic blindspot – the agricultural sector. Faced with risk-averse lending institutions, small and medium-sized farms are often left without the funding needed to grow.

“With farmers who use wheat and oats for baking bread, we take this as collateral. Wheat is actually great collateral as it doesn’t require any know-how to evaluate it - you simply use the market price to do it.”