The Impact of Technology and Collaboration in One Woman’s Farming Journey

The Impact of Technology and Collaboration in One Woman’s Farming Journey

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Over the years, Winifred Ifoma Elom, a farmer in Ebonyi State, Southeast Nigeria, has achieved tremendous success in rice production with the help of modern farming techniques. She started farming one to two hectares of land due to the limitations of manual labor. However, through a partnership with Hello Tractor, a company under the HIFAD umbrella, with support from USAID, she acquired a tractor. Through the USAID Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Investment Activity, she was connected to Hello Tractor and provided training opportunities. The partnership with USAID and Hello Tractor helped modernize her farming practices, bridging the gap between traditional and mechanized agriculture.

With the introduction of the tractor, Elom expanded her farming operations from two hectares to an impressive 100 hectares of rice fields. Rice production has significantly increased, resulting in a surplus of rice and generating excess income for farmers. The impact on women in the Afikpo community in Ebonyi State has been particularly notable; they can now hire the tractor to ease their work. After supporting their family’s farm work, women can now quickly plant crops on their own farms using the tractor. What used to take them weeks can now be done more efficiently and effectively. The tractor has given women the chance to expand their farms and increase their income.

Elom believes that agriculture is the number one priority of life since food is essential for survival. “The money you seek is in agriculture,” she said. “And running away from it would be a waste of time.”

The demand for tractor services is high, and Elom’s company, Dumure Teketeke Global Ventures, caters to individuals, farm owners, small farmers, cooperatives and nearby villagers. They even serve clients outside their town, extending their reach to other states such as Cross River and Anambra.

“Because the tractor is primarily used during the farming season, there are peak times when the machine is in high demand, such as during land preparation, planting and harvest season,” Elom said.

She notes the need for additional machinery like rice harvesters to ensure timely and efficient harvesting, preventing the loss of mature rice.

Community Visioning Prioritizes Needs and Facilitates a Tangible Sense of Ownership

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In Matabeleland North, one of the driest and most food insecure regions in Zimbabwe, USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (BHA)-funded Amalima Loko activity empowers communities to address and take ownership of their development priorities. In Daluka Village, Ward 19, Lupane, community leader Moven Ngwenya reflects on his community’s experience a year after the village started the Community Visioning (CV) process.

“Amalima Loko set us in motion,” said Ngwenya, whose village’s CV process kicked off in June 2021 with the planning and preparation stage, which involves a series of exercises for communities to identify their existing structures, assets and formal and informal capacities to inform local transformation plans at the village and ward level. During this stage, communities generate a range of resources, including a socio-economic map, community resource map, historical timeline, vulnerability matrix and seasonal calendar for crops and livestock.

“We took part in several discussions on long-term food security and resilience planning,” Ngwenya recalls of the planning and preparation stage. “We started with resource mapping, during which we were asked questions about how we lived, what we had and what a thriving community looked like,” he recounted. “When they asked us what a thriving community would look like, we realized immediately that we were onto something life-changing and that we had taken an important step towards creating something that would provide the community of Daluka with some tangible sense of ownership.”

Ngwenya recalled that during discussions, Amalima Loko staff worked with the CV participants to overcome differences in community priorities. “At first, we had competing needs,” he said. “Some wanted food, others water, while others wanted schools and bridges. We worked with Amalima Loko to rank and prioritize our needs.”

These discussions feed into a cohesive community vision, including goals and actionable steps, with a focus on resilience. In Daluka village, ultimately community discussions led to the prioritization of water access through drilling and rehabilitation of boreholes that can provide clean water for people and livestock.

“We identified access to water as an important and immediate need,” Ngwenya said. “We concluded with a concrete action plan at village and ward level, where we now have both short-term and long-term goals that we are striving to achieve in solidarity as a community.”

The Daluka Ward 19 Transformation Plan was finalized in December 2021, and set goals such that by 2030, community members, inclusive of all genders and abilities, will have access to adequate potable water, productive agriculture, market linkages, improved health and nutrition, education, inclusive skills development, natural resources management skills and  recreational services.

Ngwenya’s  community is now in the implementation stage of the CV process, where communities take actions to achieve the goals outlined in the transformation plans. Accomplishments to date include:

  • Ten boreholes in the watershed cluster rehabilitated with Amalima Loko support (two within Daluka Ward).
  • Five new boreholes targeted for construction in the watershed cluster (one within Daluka Ward) by Amalima Loko—currently at the solar installation stage.
  • One rehabilitated borehole completed by Mafinyela Village through collective action independent of Amalima Loko.
  • Gulley reclamation conservation works throughout the ward.
  • Rehabilitated feeder roads from Sibangani Village leading to major health facilities.

“The Community Visioning process under the Amalima Loko program has been a true turning point for the Daluka community,” Ngwenya said. “Amalima Loko came through with a Community Visioning approach which gave us direction and strengthened our voices to determine projects and set the pace at which we wanted this development to happen. I must say this was a welcome initiative.”

Amalima Loko is funded by the USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance and implemented by CNFA. It is designed to improve food and nutrition security for more than 82,800 vulnerable households in rural Zimbabwe through increased food access and sustainable watershed management. The activity’s Community Visioning process has reached over 42,000 people of diverse genders, ages, abilities and social groups in more than 500 villages.

Preserving Food and Preserving Lives: Improving Income through Innovative Preservation Technologies

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Diakité Mariam Diarra is an agri-food processing entrepreneur from Koutiala, Mali, where she actively watched and helped her mother produce and sell home-made natural juices throughout her childhood.

“I decided to continue my mother’s passion in the field of food processing.” Diarra said. “However, my experience remained basic until 2014, when I received training provided by the the Support Fund for Vocational Training and Apprenticeship (Fond d’Appui à la Formation Professionnelle et à l’Apprentissage FAFPA).”

Since, she has been able to enhance her ability to market locally, as well as to Bamako. Her success led her to exploring export opportunities even, participating in the International Fair of Agriculture and Animal Resources (FIARA) fair in Senegal.

In 2022, Diarra started collaborating with the Feed the Future Mali Sugu Yiriwa activity through an Open Day Event organized in Koutiala, where she won first prize in the culinary contest and received a 100-kilogram gas drying machine. After this, her work with the Activity progressed, participating in other  trade events—both nationally and regionally—where she could sell her products and establish new business relationships.

“I attended several trainings that greatly improved my food processing skills which has enabled me to increase my income,” she said. “I particularly appreciated the session on good preservation practices for perishable products.”

Like other vendors in Sugu Yiriwa’s intervention zones, Diarra was facing significant waste of perishable products. With excessive use of fertilizers, frequent power cuts and high temperatures, the vegetables she bought would lose their freshness and quality over a period of two days, forcing her to get rid of the produce and bear financial losses.

According to statistics[1] from the diagnostic report of market garden production systems in Mali, market garden produce perishes at high rates in Mali, often exceeding 20%. To improve the availability and accessibility of nutritious and healthy products for households throughout the year, Sugu Yiriwa organized three trainings in November 2022 for 177 market actors on good preservation practices for perishable products.

During those sessions, participants worked on techniques to preserve food products in the short- and long-term, using technologies such as Zero Energy Cooling Chambers (ZECCs) and canary fridges, as well as modern methods like pasteurization, refrigeration and the use of preservatives. Brining was also presented as a preservation method.

“I put these new skills into practice by building a conservation chamber with cement bricks and sand that was available at my house,” Diarra said. “This method helped me save time, energy and money by better preserving my products.”

With these new skills and techniques, Diarra’s family is able to enjoy fresh produce regularly, including during the Ramadan season where she conserved carrots, peppers and tomatoes effectively for up to two weeks.

She also began producing brine for marketing, as well as for her own consumptions.

“The brine I produce helps diversify my sources of income and provide my family with vegetables such as green beans and carrots throughout the year, even when they are not available in the market,” she said. “While others struggle to find these vegetables, I am able to preserve them year-round.”

To share her experience, Diarra organizes individual capacity building sessions for her family, cooperative members and neighbors on her volition. With knowledge from the Sugu Yiriwa training, she was able to disseminate information to 40 individuals, improving their incomes and access to nutritious foods year-round, while also building capacity.

“I am proud of the positive feedback I received and the impact these training sessions have on their lives,” she said.

Access to nutritious food year-round is essential to addressing malnutrition, especially in Mali’s the southern zone, among children, pregnant and lactating women and the elderly. According to the 2022 Standardize Monitoring and Assessment of Relief and Transitions (SMART) nutrition survey, the prevalence of acute malnutrition in Mali exceeds the 10% alert threshold in most regions. Feed the Future Sugu Yiriwa trainings, like the one attended by Diarra, contribute to improving household livelihoods and fostering resilience by enabling households to produce and consume healthy foods throughout the year.

[1] Rapport diagnostic des systèmes de production maraîcher au Mali, Projet SAFEVEG.

Deterring Elephants with Chili Strings: Reducing Human-Wildlife Conflict

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The Tsholotsho District of Zimbabwe is home to an abundance of wild animals that move about freely. The Matabeleland region, where the district is located and where the USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance-funded Amalima Loko activity operates, is home to over 50,000 elephants.[1] Growing human and animal populations have increased pressure on land, food and water resources, creating competition between wild animals and local residents such as Mark Neta from the village of Funda. Human-wildlife conflict is an ever-present concern, endangering both the people and the animals involved. Herds of elephants can trample huge areas of cropland overnight, destroying the main food and livelihood source for local residents.

“Elephants are the most problematic animals,” Neta said. “They destroy crops and we would barely harvest.”

Trying to prevent this damage, Neta and other local farmers tried to scare them away through methods like beating drums.

“These efforts were, in most cases, in vain,” he said. “The elephants would still come.”

The implications of human-wildlife conflict for food security in the area were highlighted by Funda villagers during a Community Visioning exercise facilitated by Amalima Loko in late 2021. These sessions serve as forums where communities and their leaders can identify areas to prioritize and plan development interventions.

Mark Neta, from Funda village, Tsholtsho, pointing at a chili string.

To support the community’s goal of reducing human-wildlife conflict, Amalima Loko worked with local leaders to explore new ideas for deterring elephants from destroying crops. This is when they discovered the chili strings method used in other regions. While some were skeptical of its effectiveness, the community decided to try the method anyway. This involved hanging chili-infused strings across known elephant routes near cultivated areas to deter their entry into fields. The strings were hung as part of a three-month pilot in three villages in April 2022.

To create the strings, chilis must first be dried for six weeks, then ground into flakes and immersed in a liquid solution for 36 hours. Elias Sibanda, one of twelve community members trained in this chili string method, explained the process of then diluting the flakes with used engine oil before immersing the strings in the solution. After this, the strings are ready for use.

“You do not block the elephant’s routes or corridors but only at the point they divert into the fields,” he said. “We laid it 200 meters from the field.”

This proved to be successful with participants noticing the elephants being put off by the smell of the fuel-immersed chilis.

“Since the strings were laid in April, we have seen elephants diverting their movement from our village,” Sibanda said.

Some respondents in focus group discussions described elephants backing up and stomping in frustration, but then turning and changing direction away from the chili strings.

Community leaders identified young men like Sibanda, who frequently encounter wildlife in their work as cattle herders, to receive training as scouts and first responders for elephant encounters. Training participants gained new skills and agency, positioning them as important resources within their community.

“I was selected on the basis of my local knowledge of the bush and my passion to serve my community,” Sibanda said. “Together with other scouts from other villages, we were introduced to the ‘chili strings’ technology. We despised this at first. How can a string deter something as big as an elephant? Surely this should be a bad joke—so we thought.”

However, participants report a marked reduction in elephant encroachment in the areas where the chili strings were in use, as elephants stayed on their main paths rather than diverting towards fields.

“We at least managed to harvest—thanks to the chili strings. We have not seen or witnessed an elephant invasion to date [after hanging the strings],” Sibanda said.

Preventing elephants from destroying crops improves food security, but also reduces close encounters between humans and elephants. This frees farmers from having to monitor their fields day and night and gives them more time for other livelihood activities. Villagers also reported that they can now travel safely to schools and health centers without having to fear dangerous elephant encounters as much.

“Elephants have been giving us problems,” Stabile Sibanda said. “We would sleep in the fields between March and June guarding our fields.”

Funda village residents en route to inspect the chili strings.

This particularly impacted women, with the fear of elephant encounters preventing them from carrying out daily responsibilities.

“We were afraid to go to the clinic to collect our medicines or even get the porridge for the 6- to 24-month-old children,” Stabile Sibanda said, referring to Amalima Loko’s Blanket Supplementary Feeding Program, which distributes food baskets of Corn Soya Blend Plus (CSB+) and vegetable oil to pregnant and lactating women and children under two. “[Before the introduction of the chili strings,] it was even difficult for us to enjoy the common wild fruits such as Msosobiyana. Elephants would ravage this nutritious delicacy. Women would be afraid to gather thatching grass—elephants would also destroy this grass. School children would not go to school whenever there were reports that the elephants were roaming around.”

Participants reported that the chili strings strategy was easy to implement and less laborious than previous efforts to discourage elephants. The community will need to complete a full cycle of planting and harvesting next year to gauge the final results of the pilot activity, but early observations have prompted communities to begin mobilizing resources and planting chilies to make more chili strings for the upcoming season.

While the chili strings method is showing promising initial results for deterring elephants, the community still has many challenges to contend with, including lions, jackals and painted dogs. Addressing human-wildlife conflict requires intentional investment in good land use planning and adherence to grazing plans, as well as the development of effective early warning systems. Amalima Loko will continue to work with the Funda village and communities throughout the project area to address human-wildlife conflict and other food security and resilience priorities that have been identified through the Community Visioning process.

[1]https://www.cms.int/sites/default/files/document/cms_nlp_zwe_plan_elephant_2021.pdf

Adapting to the Climatic Conditions Affecting Cashew Nut Production in Benin

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In Gbaoussi, a village in the district of Nikki in Northern Benin, Yarou Saka Abdoulaye works as a cotton producer. However, when he is not working in his cotton field, he maintains and grows his cashew orchard— an initiative he started three years ago. Abdoulaye embarked on this endeavor to broaden his horizons and try something new but, with a high seedling mortality rate, it was difficult for him to achieve the desired results. To make matters worse, access to quality grafted seedlings was limited, mainly because of its sensitivity to climatic conditions.

The USDA West Africa PRO-Cashew Project worked with Abdoulaye and other farmers to address and overcome these issues, especially in the preliminary stages, through training sessions and cashew production strategy support to deal with the changing weather conditions. This includes the PRO-Cashew Project’s “Climate Change Adaptation System for Cashew Grafting Success” trainings, which help novice cashew growers and those facing challenges related to high plant mortality, introduce best practices and access quality grafted seedlings.

“Since 2019, when I started my orchard, I have seen three-quarters of my plants die,” Abdoulaye said. “People have told me that this is largely due to the recent climatic variability that Benin experiences. But, when I was enrolled in PRO-Cashew’s training and follow-up program, I understood that it is now possible to reverse this trend and realize my great dream of creating my cashew plantation.”

Yarou Saka Abdoulaye tends to his crops in Gbaoussi, Benin

 

Six months after receiving the training, Abdoulaye’s plants are growing well and thriving in his orchard, with grafted seedlings experiencing lower mortality rates. Of the 125 grafted plants he received from the Project, 123 are still alive, putting the mortality rate at only 1.6%. With the success of his cashew trees, he hopes to become a model for his community and help other producers adapt their farming practices to be more resilient against the area’s climatic variability.

“I would like to be able to share my skills and experience, helping other members of my community who are facing problems related to climate variability in their orchards,” Abdoulaye said.

He credits the PRO-Cashew Project and its on-farm training exercises for helping him and other local cashew producers better understand the difficulties they were going through, and for giving them the chance to carry out the remedial agricultural practices firsthand.

“They trained us theoretically and practically by giving us advice on what to do and what not to do, but above all by allowing us to practice the advice received in our different orchards,” he said.

One of the key methods used to optimize Abdoulaye’s cashew tree production is simple and can be done with easily accessible materials. With a 1.5-liter plastic water bottle, it is possible to install a drip irrigation system by turning it upside down against a stake at the foot of the plant, and unscrewing the cap slightly to allow water to drip. From here, all that is needed is for the bottle to be refilled once or twice a week through a hole at the base. Finally, to maximize the use of water, mulching is recommend especially in areas with a low risk of a termite attack.

PRO-Cashew Training Increases Farmer Incomes

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Sumaila Edibo is a cashew farmer living in Iyale, a settlement in the Kogi state in central Nigeria. Since Edibo’s two-ha cashew farm provides his family with their primary livelihood and source of income, he decided to partner with the USDA Food for Progress-funded West Africa PRO-Cashew Project in 2021 to learn how he could improve his business skills, agronomic practices and harvest and post-harvest handling to increase his farm’s productivity and revenue.

Edibo participated in all of the trainings organized by PRO-Cashew in Nigeria where he learned best practices for weeding, timely pest management and disease control and harvest and post-harvest handling. He also learned how to collect and analyze relevant market information from buyers like Sonata Agri International, a local agro-processor, to improve farm-level decision-making and take advantage of market opportunities.

After Edibo applied these improved practices on his orchard, the productivity of his farm significantly increased. Edibo recounted that in 2021, before his participation in the training program, his farm yield was approximately 960 kg per ha, for which he earned $960 (NGN 420,000). In 2022, however, his farm yield increased by about 25% to 1,200 kg per ha. As a result of his farm’s increased output and the better prices he began receiving for his products through his partnership with Sonata Agri International, Edibo recorded an annual income of $1,710 (NGN750,000)—a 79% increase over the previous year.

Sumaila Edibo purchased a motorcycle to haul goods with his increased cashew earnings.

Edibo explained how the training program has benefitted farmers across Iyale, highlighting that the majority of local trainees have embarked on different projects throughout the community, such as building houses, launching new businesses, digging boreholes and installing grinding machines, with the additional revenue they acquired from the sale of cashew nuts. Edibo himself used his additional income to purchase a three-wheeled motorcycle with a trailer for hauling goods. This has enabled him to provide rural logistical services to farmers within and beyond his community, further increasing his earnings. Following the advice of a Sonata Agri International extension officer who provided training in partnership with PRO-Cashew in 2022, Edibo also saved $1,256 (NGN 550,000) of his cashew nut sales, which he used to sustain his family during the cashew off-season.

When asked about the impact of the training program on his livelihood, Edibo said, “Before participating in the project, transporting harvested goods from me and my friends’ farms was always a major challenge. We had to walk long distances, sometimes above three kilometers from our farms to our homes with heavy loads on our heads.”

Edibo plans to expand his farm to three hectares in 2023 using the new improved seedlings that the PRO-Cashew Project is distributing to farmers and nurseries. Next year, Edibo also hopes to help his wife start a small grocery business in the community.

Improving Post-Harvest Practices to Increase Cashew Farmers Income

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Salifa Yahaya is a farmer from Labaka-Oja, a small settlement in the Kwara State of Nigeria, where about 80% of the residents are cashew farmers. Despite the region’s climate and soil conditions being apt for farming raw cashew nuts, local producers face other issues that hinder their operations. More specifically, unfavorable market conditions as well as a lack of technology make it difficult to harvest large yields and produce high-quality cashew nuts to sell for higher prices. Despite managing a relatively large farm of 11 ha, this affected Yahaya.

To address these barriers, the USDA West Africa PRO-Cashew Project (PRO-Cashew) collaborated with Sonata Nigeria formerly known as Huxley Nigeria, a company specializing in the processing and exporting of raw cashew nuts, to host a series of training sessions—one of which Yahaya attended. In this training, Yahaya and other local farmers learned new harvest and post-harvest practices to implement on their farms to produce better results. They were also trained in business operating techniques to make the most out of their improved cashew yields.

“I never thought I could get so much more money just by drying my cashew nuts,” she said. “I also never believed in keeping those little farm records and consistently saving small amounts of money until Sonata Nigeria trained us. I am so grateful I didn’t miss out.”

 

Applying the tools and trainings received from PRO-Cashew enabled Salifa Yahaya to diversify her income.

In the previous harvesting season, Yahaya was only able to collect 3.5 MT of raw cashew nuts due to many parts of her farm being inaccessible from orchard overgrowth. Applying pruning and management practices from the Sonata Nigeria training, Yahaya was able to improve her orchard’s conditions and collect larger and higher quality yields. This harvest season, she collected about 5 MT of raw cashew nuts. By drying the nuts, Yahaya was able to increase the quality of her product even further and sell for a higher price than she would have if the nuts were wet, earning about 7% more than her peers.

Before participating in Sonata Nigeria’s training, Yahaya did not approach her cashew production as a business, but rather as means to support just herself and her family. With a new business outlook, she now meticulously records production and sales figures, making it easier to re-invest into her enterprise and engage in other profitable activities. Yahaya also joined a savings group which allows her to allocate money toward other plans she may, following the recommendation of a Sonata Nigeria extension worker.

As part of the PRO-Cashew Agricultural Extension Grant program’s objective of establishing stronger supply chain linkages between producers and exporters, a grant was provided to Sonata Nigeria to continue supporting raw cashew nut producers with agricultural extension services. The grant also aims to enhance the local processing company’s supply chain and open doors for producers to find more selling opportunities.

Cashew Nut Purchasing Network: Improving Incomes and Smallholder Farmer Guarantees

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The cashew industry is expanding rapidly in Côte d’Ivoire, one of the world’s top cashew producing countries, however its potential for quality production, processing and domestic and export trade has yet to be fully realized. To help farmers receive a quality-based price increase on cashew sales, Sonata Côte d’Ivoire (CI) formerly known as Huxley Cote d’Ivoire—a company specialized in the processing and export of raw cashew nut (RCN)—is partnering with the USDA West Africa PRO-Cashew Project. Implemented by Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA), PRO-Cashew aims to increase the incomes of farmers in the West African cashew sector by improving crop quality, supporting value chain linkages between farmers and agribusinesses and strengthening efficiency and quality in production and trade.

As part of the PRO-Cashew Agricultural Extension Grant program to establish stronger supply chain linkages between producers and processors, Sonata CI was selected to receive a three-year $200,000 grant to invest in a Supply Chain Program to offer training on good agricultural practices and post-harvest handling to more than 10,000 cashew producers.

At the start of the 2020/2021 cashew season, PRO-Cashew supported Sonata CI to train 30 Lead Farmers and Sonata CI staff on good agricultural practices. These Lead Farmers then trained an additional 2,581 producers across five regions where the company’s collection centers are located. Supported by PRO-Cashew, Sonata CI also facilitated the organization of cashew producer groups in each locality, establishing a high-quality RCN supply network. By offering competitive prices to farmers and supporting quality production through training, Sonata CI is improving agricultural practices and incomes for cashew producers across Côte d’Ivoire and helping farmers invest their profits back into their production.

Sameer Kohinkar, the procurement manager of Sonata CI.

“The project has given a tremendous boost to the implementation of our procurement strategy,” said Sameer Kohinkar, Procurement Manager of Sonata CI since 2018. “The training of trainers and producers led by PRO-Cashew and the establishment of producer groups in the villages have enabled us to build a reliable network of producers and cooperatives in the major cashew producing regions of Côte d’Ivoire,” he added. “Now, thanks to our purchasing network, in less than two years, we have developed a strong supply system. In return, we pay cash at a price set by the state trade regulation authority, and we offer price-based incentives to encourage farmers to produce good quality nuts, which results in a higher price for the farmer,” Kohinkar explains.

The Sonata CI Supply Chain Program has only been active for a year and a half, but the preliminary results are promising. The volume of cashews purchased directly from farmers by Sonata CI, without intermediaries, increased by 59.9% from 1,614 tons to 2,581 tons from May 2020 to May 2021. Aiming to incentivize quality RCN production, Sonata CI developed an agreement with farmers to increase the minimum price of 305,000 FCFA/MT, approximately $505/MT, set by the Government of Cote d’Ivoire, by 10,000 FCFA/MT or an additional $16. Sonata CI’s higher purchasing price encourages producers to adopt quality production methods. It also improves farmer access to more profitable markets while improving supply chain efficiencies (i.e., developing a dependable and quality RCN supply).

One Cooperative’s Improved Organizational Capacity Strengthens Services Offered to Producers in Rural Mozambique

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The Forum of Associations of Producers of Mathariya (FACAM) is a smallholder farmer cooperative in the Rubáuè District of Nampula Province, Mozambique, that was formally registered in 2008 to serve as a platform organization for different associations. FACAM has 421 members, of whom 220 are women, distributed across 22 smallholder farmer clubs, each of which has its own leadership. The main purpose of FACAM is to provide commercialization services to members, as well as to protect forest resources, disseminate best practices for the sustainable use of mineral resources and advocate on behalf of those affected by epidemic and endemic diseases like HIV/AIDS within the members’ communities.

Although FACAM aspired to grow its organization and business ventures, an assessment conducted by the USAID-funded Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) Program in June 2021 highlighted several improvements that the Forum needed to make in order to take their activities to the next level. For example, low membership retention resulted in a reduction in income from dues, which are used to fund the cooperative. Additionally, the cooperative’s high turnover rate meant that FACAM members had limited relationships with clients, and therefore fewer clients using their commercialization services. The cooperative also had inconsistent organizational management and record keeping structures, making it difficult to track operations and extract data for financial statements.

In October 2021, the cooperative received its first of two F2F paired assignments involving local volunteers working on the ground while collaborating with U.S.-based volunteers remotely. The local volunteer, Dieter Savaio from Manica province, is a teacher at the Higher Polytechnic Institute of Manica. He is also a shareholder of Emilia Commercial Seed Company and a consultant who had spare time to volunteer with F2F due to the COVID-19 restrictions placed on in-person classes. The U.S. volunteer, Joe McFadden from New Jersey, spent the last 40 years of his career as a certified public accountant working in accounting, auditing, budgeting, financial analysis and financial reporting.

After assessing FACAM’s financial management practices, the volunteers assisted their managers to set up a simple financial management and bookkeeping system. As a result, the cooperative now uses printed forms to document sales, expenses, income statements, balance sheets and controls of stock, debtors, creditors and cash flow.

In December 2021, Savaio again supported FACAM, this time with veteran U.S. volunteer Pamela Karg from Wisconsin, to assist the cooperative in improving their organizational capacity. The volunteer assistance focused on increasing due payments and strengthening leadership and association management, including improving understanding of the association’s function and the rights and duties of members. The volunteers conducted a SWOT analysis with the FACAM board members to assess major operational constraints. The volunteers also trained the club members associated with FACAM in association function, highlighting the importance of participatory management strategies. At the end of the assignment, Savaio presented recommendations to FACAM Board members for improving the organization and helping them achieve their goals.

As result of the F2F trainings, currently 60% of the members are paying their dues – a considerable increase from before. Additionally, sale volumes increased from 640 ton in 2021 to 970 ton in 2022, as an increasing number of farmer clubs commercialized their products through FACAM due to its improved organization and services offered to clubs and non-associated producers.

Fast forward and in August 2022, FACAM received a grant from the INKOTA consortium to initiate mechanization and transport services through the purchase of tools such as a tractor and a trailer. Even though INKOTA received applications from four cooperatives located in Ribáuè district, FACAM was the only one that met the conditions required by INKOTA to have a strong organizational capacity.

Antonio Joaquim, president of FACAM, noted his gratitude for the assistance his cooperative received from F2F volunteers, stating that “FACAM now develops its business in a professional way. Our vision is to continue growing and we will count on more assistance from F2F to support us to better position ourselves in the market.”