Every 5 days, a satellite passes over Mozambique at an altitude of 400 kilometers. It photographs every farm, every field, and every tree at 10-meter resolution. This data is free, public, and serves as a powerful tool for agricultural development, which is core to the mission of Maputo Bridge Capital, founded by Anselmo Boaventura in Fort Worth, Texas.
Maputo Bridge Capital (MBC) uses this satellite data to verify every farmer in our program. Rather than relying solely on manual paperwork or site visits, we utilize this space-based technology to provide oversight. MBC connects sponsors with verified smallholder farmers, working specifically with the COJAZ cooperative in Zambezia.
How Satellite Verification Works
The European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 satellite captures multispectral imagery of the entire Earth every 5 days. Each image contains 13 spectral bands — including red, near-infrared, and short-wave infrared. By comparing how plants absorb red light (for photosynthesis) and reflect near-infrared light, we calculate the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) — a measure of vegetation density and crop health.
NDVI ranges from -1 to +1:
- 0.6 to 0.9: Healthy, dense crops — farm is thriving
- 0.3 to 0.6: Moderate vegetation — farm is growing
- 0.1 to 0.3: Sparse vegetation — farm is struggling
- Below 0.1: Bare soil or water — no crops
When a farmer joins MBC, we capture their GPS coordinates. Every 5 days, we pull Sentinel-2 imagery for their plot and calculate NDVI. This gives us a time series of crop health throughout the season — from planting to harvest.
Why This Matters for Sponsors
Traditional agricultural support models often rely on officers visiting farms and filling out manual paperwork, which can be slow and expensive. Satellite verification changes this by providing a reliable, technology-driven approach.
Satellite verification is:
- Instant — data updates every 5 days automatically
- Free — Sentinel-2 imagery is public and open
- Objective — satellites provide unbiased data
- Comprehensive — every farm, every season, no gaps
- Historical — we can see 5+ years of crop history for any plot
When you sponsor an MBC farmer, you are helping fund local resources. 92% of your contribution goes directly to the farmer's local seed and fertilizer shop, while 8% covers field verification and receipt documentation. You receive receipts and field photos from the process. The satellite imagery serves as a way to understand the progress on the ground.
The 6-Source Credit Model
Satellite NDVI is just one of six data sources MBC monitors to understand the agricultural landscape for unbanked farmers:
- Satellite NDVI (30% weight) — crop health from Sentinel-2 imagery. NDVI 0.6+ indicates a healthy farm.
- Mobile Money Activity (15% weight) — M-Pesa, e-Mola, mKesh transaction frequency and volume.
- Weather & Climate Risk (15% weight) — Open-Meteo historical rainfall, temperature, and drought or cyclone proximity.
- Farm Profile (10% weight) — farm size, years farming, crop type, and cooperative membership.
- Repayment History (20% weight) — outcomes from previous harvest repayment cycles, where farmers repay into a Community Fund to support the next farmer.
- Community Verification (10% weight) — field agent biometric verification and cooperative membership via partners like COJAZ.
This model is a research-driven approach to understanding the agricultural sector, similar to the concepts discussed in our articles on AI credit scoring for unbanked farmers and data science powers of MBC. While these technologies represent future possibilities for efficiency, they are part of the sophisticated infrastructure we use to verify the farmers you support today. Learn more about how we verify and meet our farmers.
The Nature of the Harvest
Agriculture as the engine of wealth: ten great books on farming, land, seed, water, risk and innovation, and who funds agriculture in Mozambique.
PDF ebook, instant download. $5 of every copy buys seed for a farmer.
Watching Maria's Farm Grow
Let's trace a real farm through a season using satellite data:
Planting (October)
NDVI: 0.15 (bare soil, freshly planted)
- Farmer has prepared the land and planted seeds
- Satellite shows bare soil with slight vegetation signal
- Credit model notes: planting confirmed, weather favorable
Early Growth (November)
NDVI: 0.35 (seedlings emerging)
- Crop is establishing root systems
- Satellite shows increasing green vegetation
- Credit model notes: germination successful, growth on track
Vegetative Growth (December)
NDVI: 0.55 (active growth)
- Plants are growing rapidly
- Satellite shows dense green canopy
- Credit model notes: healthy growth, no stress indicators
Peak Growth (January)
NDVI: 0.72 (peak vegetation)
- Crop is at maximum canopy density
- Satellite shows vigorous, healthy vegetation
- Credit model notes: excellent crop health, high yield expected
Maturity (February)
NDVI: 0.65 (approaching harvest)
- Crop is maturing, leaves beginning to senesce
- Satellite shows slight decrease in NDVI
- Credit model notes: normal senescence, harvest approaching
Harvest (March)
NDVI: 0.20 (post-harvest, bare soil)
- Crop has been harvested
- Satellite shows bare soil again
- Credit model notes: harvest complete, yield verification needed
This time series — 6 satellite images over 6 months — tells the complete story of a farming season. No paperwork. No site visits. Just 400km of empty space and a camera. MBC works with the COJAZ cooperative in Zambezia to facilitate these insights, ensuring that every sponsorship, starting from $25, goes directly to the farmer's local seed and fertilizer shop.
The Blockchain Connection
Every satellite reading is logged to MBC's blockchain. Each block contains:
- Farmer ID and GPS coordinates
- NDVI reading and date
- Credit score at time of reading
- SHA-256 hash linking to the previous block
This creates an immutable audit trail. You can verify that a farmer's crop was healthy on January 15th, 2026 — not because we said so, but because a satellite photographed it and a blockchain recorded it. We invite you to learn more about how sponsoring a farmer works.
22 SHA-256 blocks are currently logged. Every new sponsorship, every satellite reading, and every repayment adds a new block to the record. The chain grows and the proof accumulates, allowing you to see the results of your support, which are gifts, not investments.
Why Supporters Care
Those who support smallholder farmers, including partners and organizations found at /groups, need verifiable evidence that their support creates measurable impact. Traditional impact reports are often self-reported, delayed, and difficult to verify.
MBC's satellite + blockchain system provides:
- Real-time verification — NDVI updates every 5 days, not once a year
- Objective data — satellites do not have conflicts of interest
- Immutable records — blockchain entries cannot be altered
- Granular tracking — every farm, every season, every transaction
If you support a farmer through MBC, you can watch the growth of their farm from space. Every 5 days. For the entire season. No quarterly reports. No manual site visits. Just open your browser and look at the satellite imagery.
This is what radical transparency looks like when it is powered by technology.
The Future: AI + Satellite + Blockchain
MBC's self-learning credit model improves with every cycle of support and repayment. As we scale, the model gets smarter:
- Every repayment teaches the model which NDVI patterns predict success
- Every new data point refines the weights
- Every model update is logged to the blockchain
The result: a credit scoring system that gets more accurate with every farmer we serve — and every improvement is verifiable on-chain. Read more on the MBC Blog about how this infrastructure seeks to connect Mozambican farmers to resources using satellites, AI, and blockchain.
See It for Yourself
Satellite imagery and blockchain verification provide radical transparency for how sponsoring a farmer works. By utilizing 10-meter resolution data captured every five days, we can verify crop progress and document field activities, ensuring that every contribution is accounted for through transparent digital logs.
- Meet the farmers — live data from our farmer portfolio
- How to help farmers in Mozambique — frontier data and documentation explained
- Is sponsoring a farmer a donation? — where every dollar goes
- Before you give: 7 questions — what to expect in the field
- Field documentation: Verification photos and receipt logs, growing with every transaction
The satellites are already in orbit. The blockchain records are already running. Smallholder farmers associated with the COJAZ cooperative in Zambezia are already planting. Your support ensures they have the resources needed to succeed.
The Smallholder Season
For a smallholder farmer in Mozambique, the season is defined by the timely application of seeds and fertilizers. When a sponsor provides support from $25, these funds are directed immediately to local shops to secure necessary inputs. This process ensures the farmer can plant during the optimal window, directly impacting the final harvest yield and the ability to repay into the Community Fund, which then helps the next farmer in the cooperative.
Frequently asked questions
How often do satellites capture farm data? Satellites currently photograph farms at a 10-meter resolution every five days to monitor agricultural progress.
What role does blockchain play in farming? Blockchain technology allows for the creation of immutable, transparent logs of transactions and field verifications, ensuring accountability.
How does NDVI data assist farmers? NDVI data is used to analyze vegetation health, helping to track crop development from space throughout the growing season.
Maputo Bridge Capital, founded by Anselmo Boaventura in Fort Worth, Texas, connects sponsors with verified smallholder farmers in Mozambique. You can sponsor a farmer from $25 to support their seasonal needs; please note that these sponsorships are gifts, not investments, and are not tax-deductible.