Stories from the Field

CREATING HIGHER YIELDS FOR THE POOR:Empowering farmers in the field

MZEE SUMASUMA’S EFFORTS TO ADOPT NEW TECHNOLOGIES PAYS OFF

Elizabethi Justin’s Triumph: “Any Woman Can Become Anything They Want in Life”

Elizabethi Justin, 24 years old, is orienting staff in her new agro-dealer shop in Olmokea Village, Tanzania, opened with the help of a loan from the National Microfinance Bank (NMB). It is her third shop, and with the loan in hand, already she has plans to open a fourth.

Good Seeds, Better Lives: Seeds, Supplies, and Advice for Rural Farmers

Sebulega John Bosco is standing in a field flowering with life. Sebulega, a soft-spoken farmer, lives in Mityana, a small village in rural Uganda whose name means “40 trees.” In the background are a giant jackfruit tree and a stand of orange trees. On this patch of land are bean plants and banana trees that provide Sebulega and his family with food and

Farming as a business: Widows’ Group breaks through to sell to WFP

On 23rd October 2009, the dream of selling to Top of the Supply Chain buyer became a reality when a group of widows loaded 100 Metric Tons of maize into WFP trucks. “I cannot believe we have just been issued with a bank transfer slip of Kenya shillings 2.45 million!” said Lucy Chepngeno the group’s treasurer.

Encouraging Adoption of Africa’s Orphan Crops (Kenya)

After three years of toil, Janey Leakey can finally take a breather. Leakey, a founding director of Leldet Seed Company in Kenya, now has assurance that improved varieties of underutilized seeds (pigeon pea, sorghum, soya beans, chick pea and ground nut) will finally be approved for production by the Kenya Plant Health Inspection Services (KEPHIS).

Finding Hope in Farming (Mali)

After years of searching far and wide through the West African frontiers for money-making opportunities, Mr Able Traore has met fortune in the last place he expected: his farm.

Breakthrough in Sorghum’s Yield Barrier (Mali)

After years of diligent breeding, Malian sorghum breeders have finally broken the yield barrier of one of the country’s most important crops: sorghum. The grain is drought-hardy and essential to food security.

Strengthening National Seed Value Chains and Improving Smallholder Farming

Over 300 participants at a pan-African Seeds conference sponsored by AGRA’s Program on African Seed Systems (PASS) and Mali’s Rural Economic Institute (IER) heard reports from AGRA grantees and partners across the continent. Speakers presented summaries of work highpoints and challenges, as they seek to strengthen national seed value chains and improve smallholder farming.

Financing Growth for Africa’s Smallholder Farmers

Two years ago, Eunice Wanjiru Kinyua and her colleagues in the Wamumu Umoja Rice Growers Self-Help Group on the foothills of Mount Kenya had to rely on lenders who charged them 100 percent interest on loans to purchase seed and fertilizer—and sometimes to pay school fees. (September 2009)

Kilimo Biashara Lives, Bringing hope to Kenya’s smallholder farmers

Samuel Mwangi has lived in Bura-Tana amid a vast expanse of sky and aggressively rambling mesquite bushes, known locally as mathenge, for 20 years. He has lived here since before the collapse of a government-run irrigated cotton project that brought his family and many other landless farmers to the area. Most of those who remained survived by selling charcoal made from the mesquite.

New Promise and Problems for Tanzanian Agro-dealers

Five years ago when Ramadhani Kiombile was raising vegetables on a small plot near the central Tanzanian town of Ifakara, he took a bus to Dar es Salaam, the country’s commercial capital 450 kilometers (270 miles) to the east on the Indian Ocean, to attend an agricultural trade fair. While there he learned that the price of the pesticide he used on his produce was five times higher back home.

Wazalishaji mbegu bora (Breeders of good seed)

Zanobia Seeds, run by four Tanzanian brothers, sits in a valley 1500 meters below the jagged, forested hills of the Great Rift Wall. The area is isolated and suffers from periods of dry weather and inconsistent rainfall. Yet, here, Rajinder Singh Mand and his three brothers produce improved varieties of maize, beans, pigeonpea, sunflower, rice, banana, sesame seeds, lentils, yellow gram, wheat, finger millet and sorghum. Most of their customers are smallholder farmers, and, with the support of AGRA, they aim to produce quality seeds for Tanzanian farmers at prices they can afford.

Seed celebration in Tanzania

Tucked under Tanzania’s breathtaking Morogoro hills is a maize demonstration farm where about 450 farmers from neighbouring villages have gathered for a field day. Everyone is in a celebratory mood, swaying and ululating with the music. A stranger might think that the riotous colour and music mean that a big party is on. Well, the stranger would be right!

These farmers have a cause to celebrate. In the midst of the hunger and food insufficiency affecting small-scale farmers in Tanzania this year, farmers in this village doubled – some actually tripled – their maize harvests.