Agriculture is impacted by multiple variables such as weather, soil, crop, stocks, socioeconomic context, cultural aspects, supply and demand, just to name a few. Hence, understanding this domain and identifying challenges faced by stakeholders is hard to scale due to its highly localized nature. This work builds upon six months of field research and presents challenges and opportunities for stakeholders acting in the rural credit ecosystem in Brazil, highlighting how small farmers struggle to access higher values in credit. This study combined two methods for understanding challenges and opportunities in rural credit ecosystem in Brazil: (1) a study that took place in a community of farmers in Brazil and it was based on participatory observations of their work processes and interactions of 20 informants (bank employees and farmers); (2) design thinking workshops with teams from 3 banks, counting on 15-20 participants each. The results show that key user experience challenges are tightly connected to the heterogeneity of farmer profiles and contexts of use involving technology available, domain skills, level of education, and connectivity, among others. In addition to presenting data collected from interaction with informants and experiences resulting from active participant observation, we discuss a holistic view of how recommender systems could be used to promote better bank-farmer interactions, improve farmer experience in the whole process, and promote equitable access to loans beyond microcredit.

翻译：农业受多种变量影响，包括天气、土壤、作物、库存、社会经济背景、文化因素以及供需关系等。因此，理解这一领域并识别利益相关者面临的挑战因其高度本地化特性而难以规模化。本研究基于六个月的实地调研，揭示了巴西农村信贷生态系统中利益相关者面临的挑战与机遇，重点阐述了小农户在获取更高额度信贷时面临的困难。本研究采用两种方法相结合的方式，以理解巴西农村信贷生态系统中的挑战与机遇：（1）针对巴西某农民社区开展的研究，基于对20名受访者（银行员工与农民）工作流程及互动过程的参与式观察；（2）与3家银行团队共同开展的设计思维工作坊，每次工作坊有15-20名参与者。研究结果表明，关键的用户体验挑战与农民群体的异质性及其使用场景（涉及可用技术、领域技能、教育水平、网络连接等因素）密切相关。除了呈现从受访者互动中收集的数据以及通过主动参与观察获得的经验外，我们还从整体视角探讨了推荐系统如何用于促进银行与农民之间的良性互动、改善农民在整个过程中的体验，并推动超越小额信贷的贷款公平获取。