08-07: Africa Program Updates - New Vice President and Awards
CNFA Announces AGRA-Funded Programs 
CNFA, Inc. is please to announce the award of a $13.1 million, three year grant from the Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA), a new partnership established by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to create an all-inclusive Agrodealer Support Program in Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania. This pioneering entrepreneurial program will improve the yields of poor, small-scale farmers and increase livelihoods through improving access to enhanced seeds and fertilizers, as well as to technology, credit, and cash markets for their produce. This substantial grant will enable CNFA and its African affiliates, CNFA/RUMARK and CNFA/AGMARK to greatly increase the number of qualified, village-based agrodealers whose family-owned ventures provide agro-inputs to small-scale farmers. Through this program, CNFA will improve its agrodealer outreach program established with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the US Department of Agriculture.
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CNFA Announces Jason Scarpone New Vice President, Africa Programs
CNFA, Inc. announces the appointment of Jason A. Scarpone as Vice President, Africa Programs. Since July 2006, Mr. Scarpone has played an integral role in developing CNFA’s Africa Programs serving as Director of Africa Programs, based in Nairobi, Kenya. Over the past year, Mr. Scarpone brought together a team of highly talented and capable African staff and whose dedication and knowledge resulted in the launch of three new Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) projects in Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi. As Vice President, Africa Programs, Mr. Scarpone will continue his work strengthening partnerships and developing enterprise-led agricultural development across the continent.
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08-07: Malawi Updates-Lottery for Agricultural Inputs
The Malawi CNFA Affiliate, RUMARK aims to improve the business viability of rural agricultural inputs retailers (agrodealers) and the livelihoods and productivities of smallholder farmers. From August to October 2006, CNFA/RUMARK organized a lottery competition which awarded prizes of inputs to agrodealer customers who made qualifying purchases of K250 or more (about $1.80). Lottery winners were selected and awarded at public drawings. At each drawing there were three types of prizes as well as consolation prizes that consisted of a variety of farm inputs and included fertilizers, hybrid seed, herbicides and sprayers.
The lottery was a success on many levels: it allowed agrodealers to spread information in rural agricultural communities about the benefits of inputs and also enabled them to distribute and benefit their customers providing them with the opportunity to use inputs which they may not have purchased on their own. The lottery not only served to increase farmer interest and awareness of improved production technologies, facilitate an environment of appreciation to farmers for making input purchase at local RAD shops and draw in new customers, but it simultaneously created a sample of RAD customers to be used for surveys to assess objectives and outreach, encouraging greater use of improved agricultural inputs.
Future lotteries in 2007: The success of the lottery competition in 2006 prompted the scheduling of a 2007 lottery comptetition which will be structured to populate a National database of RADs customers and thereby provide RADs agrodealers with useful customer information. Currently, RADs agrodealers are being solicited to participate. They must demonstrate sound monitoring record systems and advertising methods. Surveys made based on the 2006 lottery competition are attibuted with contributing to increased sales volumes for RADs agrodealers.
08-07: Pakistan Updates-Rural Families and Women Make First Step towards Improved Income with Grants and Livestock Training
On June 7th and 8th, 46 rural families in the earthquake affected Bagh region received buffalos purchased at a total US $50,466 through a cost-share agreement under the micro-grant livelihood activity of the USAID-funded Improving Livelihood and Enterprise Development program (I-LED). I-LED, a program implemented by CNFA in the Siran and Kaghan Valleys in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), and Bagh District in Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK), assists communities affected by the October 8, 2005 earthquake through micro-loans, grants and livelihood improvement activities. This grant is the first stage in the strengthening of the dairy value chain. The rural families receiving buffalos with participate in the coming months and year in developing downstream activities such as milk collection and dairy processing. These buffalos will help rural families meet the demand for buffalo milk and support income generating dairy processing activities.
In addition to the buffalo grant which was disbursed in the Bagh region, one of the districts most affected by the earthquake in Kashmir, 875 women in Bagh-Kashmir and Manshera-NWFP participated in livestock management (for cow and buffalos) trainings in June 2007 in partnership with the Animal Husbandry Inservice Training Institute NWFP Peshawar (AHITI). CNFA also recognizes and is currently working to address the urgent need to provide livelihood opportunities for women through the provision of micro-loans, as well as assisting in the purchase of small and large animals. Through a community-based mix of training, technical assistance and strategically targeted matching enterprise grants, I-LED will continue to focus on three major components in the earthquake affected areas of Pakistan: Reconstruction of Existing Livelihoods, Value-Chain Development and Local Economic Development.
