One of the strategies of N2Africa is to open new opportunities for poor farmers and vulnerable groups by working with other players in the legume value chain and get them aggregated and linked to markets. In Tanzania there are already field based farmer organizations emerging.
During the annual planning meeting we visited Jikuzeni Kware SACCOS /AMCOS (Hai District, Kilimanjaro region in Tanzania), a collection of farmers which is considered to be successful in providing services to members. This SACCOS, founded in 2002 from more than 5 farmers groups, now counts 696 members of which almost 50% women. Objectives are to gain access to training and credits and to establish a collective voice. Members now can get loans like agricultural and small business microfinance. The SACCOS participation to P4P initiative by WFP lead to the formation of Agricultural marketing Cooperative Society (AMCOS) wing, which is responsible for crop marketing. Next to that, the SACCOS developed good skills for the whole chain of production, storage, entrepreneurship, business management, administration and other skills needed for providing good services to their farmers and selling the produces to various buyers.
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Photo credits Greta van den Brand
Photo right below: SACCOS chairman Samora Ndossi and Thomas Sillayo, leader of FAIDA MALi (NGO specialized in Market linkages) |
The purpose of our visit was to learn about partnerships, which is an important new issue in Phase II of N2Africa. Strategies and practices were discussed. N2Africa is in progress to engage this SACCOS/AMCOS to market beans through the Patient Procurement Platform (PPP) lead by WFP with facilitation from FAIDA MALi.
It was a very interesting visit and we have learned a lot from each other.
Charlotte Schilt and Freddy Baijiukya