Feed the Future Supports Women Entrepreneurs to Expand their Skills and Participate in International Fairs

To support women farmers and entrepreneurs working across the Sikasso Subzone, the USAID-funded Feed the Future Mali Sugu Yiriwa activity builds the competitiveness and resilience of female market actors by enhancing their capacity and increasing their access to key business linkages.

In June 2022, Sugu Yiriwa supported three women entrepreneurs from Sikasso, Bougouni, and Koutialato—Ami Bagayoyo, Diarrah Traore Kamissoko and Rokia Togola—to participate in the 22nd edition of the Foire Internationale de l’Agriculture et des Ressources Animales (FIARA) exhibition held in Dakar, Senegal in the leadup to Tabaski.

The three participants were first prize winners of a culinary competition organized by Sugu Yiriwa in May 2022, which highlighted nutritious local recipes and processed foods from the activity’s focal value chains of cereals, cowpeas, horticultural products, poultry and small ruminants. The women were also first-time FIARA attendees and shared the costs of the trip with Sugu Yiriwa.

Prior to the fair, Sugu Yiriwa trained Bagayoyo, Kamissoko and Rokia Togola to improve their marketing and price negotiation skills, which helped them outshine their competitors. They also received support from previous FIARA participants, enabling them to make informed decisions about what to present during the fair.

Ami Bagayoyo, Diarrah Traore Kamissoko and Rokia Togola at their stall during the Foire Internationale de l’Agriculture et des Ressources Animales (FIARA) exhibition held in Dakar, Senegal.

Bagayoyo of the Cooperative DIOBA de Koutiala recalled, “Even though this was the first time I participated in FIARA, thanks to the information I received, I was able to bring honey and Tô mougou (a product made from corn), which sold for high prices in the Senegalese market. If I have the opportunity to participate in the next fair, I will be ready to bring more products and therefore generate more income.”

Together the women sold their full inventories, which included processed cereals, chia butter and honey worth $3,400 (2,164,500 FCFA). Their participation in FIARA also opened up new business horizons as they succeeded in establishing connections with wholesalers in Dakar, Mborur and Thies.

Recognizing the economic feasibility of participating in the fair, the participants expressed their willingness to contribute to the costs of the trip and to increase the quantity of products they would supply at future exhibitions.

Kamissoko from the Groupement Balimaya de Bougouni said, “During the fair, I made higher profits negotiating with wholesalers as well as selling honey and millet transformed into dèguè mougou—a product that was in great demand in Dakar. If I have another opportunity to participate in FIARA, I look forward to showcasing more products and contributing to the cost of the fair.”

Timothy Coulibaly is a maize, millet, and peanut producer in Farakala, Mali. In 2021, when Feed the Future Mali Sugu Yiriwa began to collaborate with his village, Coulibaly was selected to work as a community focal point, helping Sugu Yiriwa provide technical support to local farmers, producers, and entrepreneurs.

So far, Sugu Yiriwa has trained over 200 development leaders like Coulibaly to assist their communities in exchanging agricultural best practices in the Sikasso region. Through their training, these community champions elevate local voices, share knowledge with agricultural stakeholders, ensure that context-specific needs are addressed, and help develop locally-driven solutions.

In June 2022, Sugu Yiriwa hosted a training in Sikasso on conservation, cereal storage, and good sanitation practices for producing and handling dry cereals like millet, sorghum, rice, maize, cowpea, and by-products. The training highlighted the serious consequences that post-harvest losses can have across the grain supply chain, such as increased market prices, fewer livelihood opportunities, and negative health impacts. During this training, Coulibaly was introduced to multifunctional threshing machines and was able to see the equipment in action.

Given the poor capacity of threshing machines in Farakala and surrounding villages, Coulibaly realized that buying an axial thresher would be a great business opportunity that would fill a gap in his area by increasing productivity, revenue, and community resilience.

Reflecting on the machine’s potential, Coulibaly said: “In the past, 30 percent of our harvest was lost due to the lack of machines that could thresh the crops in a timely and efficient way. During the harvest season, producers were obliged to wait their turn for threshing and the results were not ideal. This exposed produce to animals and rain. If the produce was not stored well before threshing, farmers were at the mercy of mold and parasites that, in addition to being vectors of disease, have a negative impact on health and agricultural yields.”

At the end of the training, Coulibaly reached out to Sugu Yiriwa to help him buy a threshing machine for his community. “Sugu Yiriwa put us in touch with SOCAFON, a company based in Niono that manufactures agricultural equipment. Sugu Yiriwa field agents accompanied me throughout the process and helped me get a price reduction. Sugu Yiriwa also helped facilitate access to a loan of 2.5 million FCFA ($3,700), which covered both the purchase price and on-site training with the manufacturer’s technicians.”

Cereal crops are central to agriculture in the Farakala area and the new thresher provides great value-added for farmers, with a capacity of up to two tons of grain per hour. “In a single working day from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., we can now thresh ten tons of grain, or 100 bags of 100 kg each,” Coulibaly said. “We provide threshing services for rice, maize, and sorghum farmers, and we have not stopped working since the arrival of the machine. Our work will continue until January, which is the end of the harvest season. I am currently working with my younger brother who is passionate and helps a lot.”

Operating the threshing machine costs between 7,500 FCFA ($11) and 10,000 FCFA ($15) per ton of maize, and between 12,500 FCFA ($19) and 15,000 FCFA ($22) per ton of rice. It operates at higher capacity and lower cost than the only other, old threshing machine in the area. Demand for Coulibaly’s threshing services is unrelenting. With the extra income he is now earning, he plans to repay his loan and buy another machine of the same type.

Sugu Yiriwa not only facilitates the acquisition of agricultural equipment, but also supports producers by offering training and advice to better manage their business and increase their profits. So far this year, two new threshing machines are up and running in Sikasso region thanks to Sugu Yiriwa and there are more to come.

Climate change has drastically reduced crop yields, lowered the nutritional quality of major cereals, and decreased livestock productivity in Sikasso. To cope with these impacts, Sugu Yiriwa promotes climate change adaptation initiatives designed to positively impact agricultural productivity in the grain sector, improve food security, and increase incomes and community resilience. This includes assisting local stakeholders, like Coulibaly, with the tools they need for more efficient harvesting and better storage, resulting in reduced effort and fewer products going to waste.

The Karazomé Literacy Center was founded in 2021 by 40 women from Maradi, Niger, to improve the literacy and numeracy skills of women entrepreneurs in the region. The co-founders, who also represent eight local poultry producer organizations (POs), learned about the importance of literacy in strengthening their agribusiness management after attending a functional literacy program hosted by the Feed the Future-funded USAID Yalwa activity in 2021.

The women of the Karazomé Literacy Center first partnered with USAID Yalwa through their poultry POs, which were supported by the activity to strengthen their production and marketing in order to improve producers’ incomes and livelihoods. USAID Yalwa’s support included training in improved animal feed production using local ingredients, improving animal healthcare and husbandry through a local network of private veterinarians, developing business plans for income generating activities and supporting PO members to establish business linkages with other market actors.

Encouraged by the progress they made during these trainings, the women came together to establish a literacy center with the goal of running it without the activity’s support.

A literacy learning session in Karazomé, Maradi.

They established good management practices early on by mobilizing internal resources and generating additional income, which supported the development of the center. These practices ranged from collecting weekly contributions from learners to expanding business activities from herding to ‘habbanayi,’ a traditional system of ‘re-constituting livestock’, which allowed each learner to raise an animal and use their products and by-products for marketing. These mechanisms for mobilizing internal resources reduced the Karazomé Literacy Center’s dependence on technical and financial support from USAID Yalwa and allowed the women to sustainably cover the costs of running the center.

Based on the income they generated during their 2022 campaign, the learners at the Karazomé Literacy Center can now cover the costs for their teacher’s monthly salary and for the equipment and supplies (notebooks, pens, chalk, etc.) needed to operate the center.

Thanks to the training provided by the activity, the women were also able to improve their household incomes and increase support to their families.

“Because of the functional literacy program, I can read and calculate my revenue, which has improved the management of my businesses.  I have also applied these skills within my household, which has improved my relationship with my husband and allowed me to support my children’s studies,” said Ilya Loubabatou, a 22-year-old learner at the center. “The knowledge I have acquired with regard to hygiene and nutrition has also greatly benefitted my family,” added Loubabatou.

A veterinarian by training, Dr. Issa Nassirou Mamane, operates a private practice that covers the department of Guidan Roumdji in Niger, supporting clients with quality veterinary products and providing daily supervision to his network of livestock managers. With support from USAID through the Feed the Future-funded USAID Yalwa activity, and previously through its predecessor, the USAID Resilience and Economic Growth in the Sahel – Accelerated Growth (REGIS-AG) program, he ensures the timely distribution of zootechnical and veterinary inputs and products across his community. He also provides quality animal health services to local producers, sensitizes and trains farmers on improved animal production techniques and promotes and popularizes innovative methods and technologies in animal husbandry, helping increase animal production.

While working with the USAID Yalwa activity, Dr. Mamane has taken part in several capacity building exercises, including in areas related to private practice management and taxation. He received support for technical training for his livestock auxiliaries, and has been equipped with small surgical and cold chain equipment to enhance the services his business offers to the community. Dr. Mamane also collaborates with USAID Yalwa on targeted campaigns to raise small ruminant breeders’ awareness on the importance of  livestock vaccination.

Dr. Issa Nassirou, the private veterinarian for the department of Guidan Roumdji, Maradi region, pictured with the Auxiliaires d’Elevage (Livestock Auxiliaries) of the Maradi Region.

With USAID Yalwa support, Dr. Mamane has improved his business management practices, with the implementation of an accounting system that aligns with the Nigerien tax requirements. The business management training Dr. Mamane received from USAID Yalwa has allowed him to grow his business, expanding the number of permanent staff from three employees to 10, and his network of livestock auxiliaries from 30 auxiliaries to 60. He has also hired 30 local women to serve as community vaccinators. At his clinic, Dr. Mamane organized the construction of a training room to both train personnel and use as a conference space for business purposes.

With these improved facilities and resources, and with support from USAID Yalwa, Dr. Mamane has increased the rate of marking of small ruminants in Guidan Roumdji to 98% in 2022, improving livestock vaccination management and reducing waste resulting from the vaccination process like vials, packaging and vaccines. Furthermore, Dr. Mamane has been key to improving the understanding and recognition of the private veterinary services and their activities, such as appearing as a guest on community radio stations. These efforts have directly resulted in more famers trusting veterinary institutions to vaccinate their herds.

To sustainably improve cowpea productivity and the incomes of producers, the Feed the Future-funded USAID Yidgiri Activity established demonstration plots throughout the agricultural season and hosted field visits to showcase good agricultural practices for land preparation, planting, weeding and harvesting periods. The plots allowed farmers to test new agricultural methods, technologies and climate-smart practices, building resilience and developing mitigation strategies to deal with environmental shocks.

From 2020 to 2022, the USAID Yidgiri Activity established more than 300 demonstration plots to test new varieties of improved cowpea seeds for food and feed, and to develop different techniques of water and integrated soil fertility management. In addition, more than 200 field visits focused on improved cowpea production practices, dual purpose cowpea variety, climate adaptability and resilience to help producers adopt new agricultural techniques in their local contexts. The demonstrations were conducted with support from Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Agriculture and producer organization extensionists to ensure sustainability of the activity.

Maria Ouedraogo, a farmer from the Nebnooma cooperative in Silmiougou, a village in the commune of Kaya, applied these improved cowpea production practices, including the use of high-yielding seed variety.

Maria Ouedraogo, a model producer for USAID Yidgiri’s cowpea demonstration plots.

“I reproduced it in my field of half a hectare and I am very satisfied,” she said. “I harvested five 100-kilogram bags of cowpeas in the 2021-2022 agricultural season, which I was able to sell at a good price.”

Sibila Sawadogo, a producer at the Wendkouni Cooperative in Nagbingou, in the commune of Boulsa, learned methods such as contour farming to conserve water on his plot. This is particularly important for his commune’s context, where they often face periods of drought.

“Since I have been experimenting with contour farming, I see that my plants grow better and do not dry out during these dry periods,” he said. “I experimented with this technique on half a hectare last year, and I have extended it to one hectare this year to harvest more and earn more money.”

For farmers like Sawadago, implementing efficient and sustainable cultivation practices that increase cowpea yields is a game changer, especially when farmers can take advantage of periods of high prices.

Amado Ouedraogo, a producer organization-based extensionist and model producer for USAID Yidgiri’s cowpea demonstration plots.

Amado Ouedraogo, a producer organization extensionist from the Songtaba cooperative in Tangasko, also benefitted from the demonstrations, scaling up the technology packages he teaches to his local peers and even increasing cowpea productivity on his own plot. Last year, he planted cowpea grain on just one hectare but decided this year to plant on all three of his hectares.

“I started to apply the techniques from my demonstration plot to my field because of the increased yields, and I invited my neighboring farmers to replicate it in theirs,” he said. “Nowadays, many of them apply it because they understand that they have a lot to gain, and I am happy to share my knowledge.”

Conducting hands-on demonstrations in a farm environment allows producers to increase their yield and adopt practices which are sustainable, efficient and revenue generating. This is particularly important moving forward as the effects of climate change continue to intensify. Climate-smart solutions are needed to ensure that farmers can continue to cultivate crops, like cowpea, and maximize their earnings.

To increase access to markets for cowpea producers, platforms are needed to build linkages between stakeholders across the cowpea value chain. With greater access to a range of inputs, the production process is made smoother, enabling producers to generate more profit from their goods as a result of higher quality and quantities. In Burkina Faso, the Feed the Future-funded USAID Yidgiri Activity supported the establishment of innovation platforms to help producers access new markets.

Innovation platforms are consultation frameworks that bring together stakeholders, such as cowpea producers, union leaders, input distributors and microfinance institutions to develop value chains, facilitating access to inputs and marketing. These are especially successful in connecting local producers with buyers.

Through an innovation platform meeting organized with the support of USAID Yidgiri in May 2022, the Provincial Union of Cooperatives of Cowpea Producers of Sanmatenga connected with Catholic Relief Services and agreed to deliver 84 tons of cowpea, worth a total of around $85,700 (approximately 57 million FCFA). By creating linkages like this in the cowpea supply chain, producer organizations can generate more resources for future agricultural campaigns and sell their products in higher quantity and quality.

Three members of the Provincial Union of Cowpea Producers of Sanmatenga stand in front of their cowpea stock.

Karfo Sawadogo, president of Wendkonta of Nagbingou, a communal union of simplified cooperatives, took part in one of these workshops. “I really appreciated this workshop because it allowed the groups present to get to know us better, to trust us and to help us reach a contract for the delivery of 50 tons of cowpeas at a price of approximately 706,000 FCFA per ton,” he said. This is the equivalent of $1,100 per ton.

For many union members, the innovation platforms are their first experience collaborating with international organizations, who typically offer a better price than what is offered on the market. “Thanks to this connection, we were able to quickly obtain a loan from Caisse Populaire to meet our expenses and respond to the call for tenders,” Sawadogo said.

Sawadogo expressed his appreciation for the workshops and hopes to attend more innovation platform meetings to continue building fruitful relationships that can improve the local cowpea value chain. In addition to supporting the cowpea value chain, USAID Yidigiri supports innovation platforms for the poultry and small ruminant value chains, hosting workshops in the Boulsa, Fada and Kaya communities.

Overview:

The five-year, $23.75 million USAID Resilient Communities Program (2022-2027) is designed to support households and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) along Georgia’s Administrative Boundary Line (ABL). Driven by private sector engagement, host-country collaboration and catalytic grant investments, the Program builds resilience against shocks, enhances inclusion of marginalized and at-risk communities, including women and youth, and stimulates sustainable socio-economic development.

Through previous USAID-funded projects in Georgia implemented by Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA), the Program has access to a strong network of private sector, donor, NGO and Government of Georgia partners, which it uses to strengthen resilient and inclusive market systems and facilitate the development of diverse value chains. This increases revenues, creates jobs and builds community capacity to address market constraints and make key decisions. The Program targets communities along the ABL and the occupied regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, with the goal of integrating them into the broader Georgian economy.

Program Approach:

Collaboration, flexibility, scalability and sustainability are central components of the Program. The following approaches are incorporated to successfully build resilience to risks and shocks, enhance inclusion and stimulate sustainable socio-economic development:

1. Engage the private sector: The USAID Resilient Communities Program enhances productivity, accelerates knowledge transfer and improves access to markets for rural communities along the ABL. It uses its connection to a variety of businesses throughout Georgia to provide links to enterprises, including USAID program graduates who are ready to invest back in the industry.
2. Host country cooperation: To co-invest in development solutions, the Program facilitates productive, functional, trust-based working relationships with key Georgian government agencies including the Rural Development Agency (RDA), Enterprise Georgia and Georgia’s Innovation and Technology Agency (GITA). These partnerships continue to be expanded and strengthened to benefit communities along the ABL.
3. Investment in catalytic grants: The Program integrates matching grants designed to have longer and deeper impacts and strengthen market systems. It targets communities and market systems where investments will catalyze systemic improvements, build resilience and strengthen engagement, competitiveness and market access.

Partners:

Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA): International agricultural development organization that specializes in the design and implementation of sustainable, enterprise-based agricultural initiatives. We work with businesses, foundations, governments, and communities to build customized local and global partnerships that meet the world’s growing demand for food.

Solimar International: U.S. small business with rich tourism development experience in Georgia. This includes developing a national tourism strategy and a COVID-19 recovery plan at the request of the Georgian government. This included designing new tour packages, tourism infrastructure and support services, and assessing and developing Destination Management Organizations.

Association Rural Development for Future Georgia (RDFG): Georgian NGO with more than ten years of experience in community development, disaster risk reduction (DRR), economic development and empowering women, youth and other marginalized groups in the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) and throughout Georgia. RDFG assists vulnerable communities in gaining equal access to services and opportunities.

The Policy and Management Consulting Group (PMCG): Georgian consulting firm with a wealth of economic analysis experience, including conducting value chain and niche market analysis. PMCG provides consulting services to government and nongovernmental organizations in community development and planning, private sector development, value chain analyses, MSME development and organizational capacity development.

Access to finance is one of the major barriers to increasing agricultural productivity for smallholder farmers in Rwanda. Bank branches are often located far from farmers’ homes, making it difficult for them to access the financial services needed to support and scale up their businesses.

Mobile financial services and microfinance institutions (MFIs) like Duterimbere MFI and Umurimo Finance Ltd are well-placed to combat this by offering solutions that improve access to finance and address issues like the high cost of transactions, high cost of reaching farmers in rural areas and low rate of farmer transactions, which also impacts the availability of financial data for proper loan distribution and decision-making. Since 82 percent of Duterimbere and Umurimo’s clients are farmers, they partnered with the USAID-funded Feed the Future Rwanda Hinga Weze activity to improve farmers’ access to finance in the districts of Kayonza, Gatsibo and Nyamasheke.

Hinga Weze and its MFI partners teamed up with ADFinance Ltd, a Rwandan company specializing in the design and implementation of digital solutions for the financial sector, and local mobile network operators to develop a SMS-based software called ADMobile. The software enables farmers to conveniently deposit and withdraw funds from their bank accounts and complete mobile money transactions with ease. After its launch, ADFinance Ltd provided training to MFI staff on the service’s usage and MFI staff, in turn, educated their farmer clients on how to use the new mobile tool.

The new push-pull service works by integrating the MFIs’ core banking systems with mobile money services from network operators Mobile Telephone Network (MTN) and Airtel. Through this mobile service, individuals and savings groups can access their mobile money wallets and make payments online, without needing to travel to a physical bank branch. The new mobile financial service therefore makes it easier for farmers to save income since they no longer need to spend time and resources traveling back and forth to the bank.

The service’s simplified withdrawal and deposit transaction processes also facilitate loan repayments quicker and more efficiently than before. During COVID-19 lockdown periods when physical movement in the country was restricted, the mobile platform not only helped farmers continue using financial services, but it also helped them save time, increase transparency, improve the security of group savings and reduce conflicts among groups. Participating MFIs also saw an increase in the volume of client transactions, lowering the cost of their operations and supporting farmers to collect enough data to make improved lending decisions.

To enhance access to ADMobile and increase the number of farmers utilizing the platform’s mobile financial services, the activity and its partners developed campaigns showcasing the platform’s benefits. than 1,300 smallholder farmers have accessed over $328,000 in loans through the digital system. Beyond its support to individual farmers, 674 savings groups have used the digital financial service to connect with MFIs and access new sources of funding.

Recently, ADFinance Ltd also successfully piloted a new mobile-based service called “Mobile Lending,” which enables the automated disbursement of small loans to bank clients utilizing a defined criteria and machine learning technology. Moving forward, ADFinance Ltd aims to scale up their services, allowing them to reach more farmers in remote areas of Rwanda, to expand their technology into other countries and, most importantly, to quickly and efficiently facilitate improved access to loans for farmers.

In Rwanda, only 3.18 million out of 7.75 million individuals of working-age are employed, and the number has declined by more than 13 percent since August 2020. The agriculture sector also lost upwards of 47,000 jobs while the unemployment rate stayed relatively high at 25.5 percent among the youth population (National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda).

Linking youth to agriculture can significantly contribute to innovation, job creation and agriculture sector development. The USAID-funded Feed the Future Rwanda Hinga Weze activity works to attract youth in agriculture by increasing agricultural productivity, employing youth through internships, improving access to finance and strengthening youth capacity in digital and private sector extension. Since 2017, the Activity has reached 733,000 individuals, of whom over 24 percent were youth.

To support the development of youth entrepreneurs, the Hinga Weze Activity provided internships to over 200 youth and awarded $92,647 in youth-specific grants for companies including Mahwi Tech, Carl Group, Zima Enterprise and KOTIB. Using the grant funds, Mahwi Tech was able to transform its M-LIMA platform, a youth-owned agricultural market information platform, into an online marketplace that can serve the dual purposes of providing market information and facilitating market linkages. Similarly, technology company BK TecHouse was able to expand its online Smart Nkunganire System to support over 200,000 new farmers, including 51,324 youth, by improving their agricultural input and information distribution and digitalizing their agrodealer operations through a Mobile Order Processing Application.

Hinga Weze’s activities also strengthened youth capacity in extension by including youth in digital extension programming, integrating youth in public and private extension services and providing youth-friendly approaches to extension and farming through the New Extensionist Learning Kit (NELK). Hinga Weze trained 133 youth on the use of digital extension, 15 youth on digital extension content creation and 21 youth on extension video dissemination. To date, these youth produced six videos on improved maize cultivation and helped train 4,000 farmers on maize production techniques using the Center for Agriculture and Bioscience International’s (CABI) App—a mobile learning application focused on the production, harvest and post-harvest management of maize.

“Youth in Rwanda have quickly adopted information communication technology (ICT) tools and platforms. By using youth to customize and promote digital technologies, the Activity is supporting the advancement of ICT and transforming the way agricultural technologies are transferred to smallholder farmers,” highlighted Laurence Mukamana, Hinga Weze Chief of Party.

While Hinga Weze continued to utilize traditional extension methodologies to help farmers adopt climate-smart and other good agriculture practices, such as on-site coaching and Farmer Field Schools, the Activity also partnered with master trainers from the Rwanda Agriculture Board and the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources to help youth expand engagement, training and digital tools to extension agents and farmers through the Government of Rwanda’s Twigire Muhinzi national extension program. By leveraging existing government and private sector structures, Hinga Weze was able to create ownership and ensure the sustainability of promoted practices and methodologies beyond the life of the activity.