we take a look at microlending. those are businesses that loan people very small amounts of money for business ventures. microlending is growing plairp ipopularity in the united state. jennifer london has the story. >> a farmer in kenya, a weaver, they are all connected by big dreams and small financing. >> i was able to get a loan of 15 k which was -- which is a lot of money to me. but that, that helped. because at the time, i thought wow, i had this $15,000 microloan, i had some of my own money and i felt like i had enough. >> enough for michael elliot a former screen writer to open hammer and nails. a nail shop don't call it a salon just for guys. michael knew he had a unique and winning business plan. but when he asked for a loan, the answer was no. >> there are so many people who could be doing big things. >> in fact seven out of ten small business loan applications are denied by banks. >> making small loan and recovering those small loan involves huge amount of cost. and banks are not set up to minimize those

last year, a partnership to expand microlending here in los angeles. home of the largest number of small businesses in the country. so far, they have loaned to 63 entrepreneurs. >> oval, in this roll with job creation, as well as holding on to the entrepreneurial spirit that gives to the american dream. >> i'm driving down melrose avenue, and one of those businesses is mine, and i'm 46 years old. and i'm getting a second chance. at a dream. >> a small business, funded by a small loan, can be big business for thousands of entrepreneurs around the world and here at home. jennifer london, aljazeera, los angeles. >> well, the mystery has been solved. we now know why google decided to park those two barges off of the coast. they will be used to help people learn about new technology. government inspectors signed confidentiality about the barges in san francisco and maine. they would be used for floating data centers. >>> twitter is the latest high-tech to go public. and it means that some people will be very very rich. there are challenges that come with su

microlending is growing in popularity in this country.ennifer licenc london has morem los angeles a farmer in kenya and a weaver in guatemala and a small business owner in hollywood california are ditch different, but they are all connected by dreams and financing. >> i was able to get a loan of 15 k and that is a lot of money to me. at the tile tha time that helpe. i had this $15,000 microloan and i felt i had a enough. enough for michael to open, hammer and nails. he knew he had a unique business plan. when he asked for a small business loan from his bank, the answer was, no. there are so many people that could be doing big things. 7 out of 10 business loan applications are denied by banks. >> making a small lo loan invols a lot of cost. and banks are not set up to make this feasible. >> michael elliott found a financial friend at at bcvc. a company who specializes in microfinancing. >> we believe that talent is universal and opportunity is not. >> and through small business financing a few people can start their idea today. >> historic

microlending is on the rise in european countries such as spain and france. after lending tightened up during the recession... more europeans are taking out unsecured, smaller loans to launch their own businesses. the loans are under 25 thousand euro. the wall street journal reports microloans rose 31% in the eu from 2008 to 2011. in the wake of a public outcry over so-called "pink slime" in beef, cargill is making some changes. cargill is one of the world's largest producers of ground beef, but was spared much of the backlash that hit competitor beef products that were using pink slime as a filler. as consumers demand more transparency-- starting next year-- cargill plans to label its meat: as finely textured beef that is exposed to citric acid to kill e. coli. although cargil did not use pink slime, demand for its beef dropped an estimated 80% in 2012. blommer chocolate company, the largest cocoa processor and ingredient chocolate supplier in north america suffered a fire at it's chicago facility, tuesday morning. a firefighter said one of the factory's fiv

have a couple of program he says, just to give you a sense, and i will let eric talk about the microlending side, but we have a microloan program to deal with the early stage client looking for a small loan under $50,000, down to, really, $10,000. for those businesses that are not viable in any real way but have a great idea, have some abilities to show that they have a good plan and really need to be able to get some early stage financing. that is kind of a non- traditional source of capital that exists out there. the main sba programs are guaranteed loan programs, and we act essentially as a guarantor, insuring the bank that if you make a loan to a small business, the business is not able to pay the loan, the sba will pay the bank a share of that long, typically 75% or 80%. a bank like wells fargo, for example, which is the largest sba lender in the country. when the lender makes the loan to you, they come to us and say that your business, for a variety of reasons, may not be strong enough to get a loan without a guarantee. it might be a business that is too young or is a type of business

the four states i mentioned have open it up to microlender switch revises powerful tool. in the state of california desmond opportunity funding in the bay area, foxy on in san diego and a number of lenders in between have all had access to these funds under the x. this program. in 2011 i think 40,000 microloans were made across the whole system because of allowing access to that program. and the losses have been very limited and very modest. by diversifying the risk across all three parties and allowing lenders to expand the capacity can be a powerful tool. >> there was an opportunity because one of the programs that don mentioned the small business credit has gotten into state capitol access programs. we have got one more set of policy ideas and then we will bring in particular connie and christine who have a lot of experience with policy ideas working with them. i will ask you to speak a little bit about your focus specifically on local licensing and how that affects microenterprising and tell us about the barrier sissy and some recommendations he made in the paper abou

that has begun to put more emphasis on micro-business and trying to expand micro-business and microlending. we've been asked by other cities to come and talk about and help them understand new ways of thinking about what they could do around michael business. so we think just having the understanding, one of my favorite mayors in the country, i'd use this quote all the time, i won't say which one it is, but you may recognize this. he's not local. he says in god we trust. everybody else, bring data. [laughter] i think it's the case. we have to continuously bring the data so that we get a better understanding of the characteristics of these businesses. in the report i mentioned earlier, bigger than you think, we've been able to create a typology that describes five different types of business owners of micro-business, and we think based on their type of self-employment, their characteristics of income and revenue and others, we are beginning to understand a lot more about these businesses and their unique challenges and needs, and what it will take for them to succeed. we also note that even

microlending has been associated with the developing world. anthey have spread to 73 countrs cloudincloud ed i includeinclud. lastielast year they form a para partnership to open up in it lamp. los angeles. so far they have loaned more than $400,000 to 63 entrepreneurs. overall small business plays a tremendous rom role with job creation as well as holding onto the entrepreneurial spirit and that gives light to the american dream. >> i'm driving down melrose avenue and one of those businesses is mine. and i'm 46 years old. and i'm getting a second chance at a new dream. it's making a difference for thousands of entrepreneurs around the world. >> life changing an. >> and right here at home. >>> that will do it for this edition of al jazeera news. i'm stephanie sy, the stream is next. you can always log on to agriculture.com with the latest head linings. head -- hea headlines. we'll leave you now with a look at new york city.