By the numbers 342 Farmers saving with us
$5,400 USD value of farmer savings to date. We’re on track to leverage over $12,000 of small-‐scale farmer savings to help them improve their harvests and get out of poverty, permanently.
1200 Savings cards sold
50 % of customer adoption in 2 out of the 3 villages where we work
3 Village Vendor Partners
150 # of control/test farmers we will survey this May as part of our rigourous evaluation processs
1 myAgro operated store in a market center.
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It’s been an incredible six months since myAgro launched in Mali, West Africa and I am delighted to share our progress in our first 6-‐month report. In this report, we’ll share updates from our various programs as well as more background on Mali and myAgro’s unique and innovating savings model for small-‐scale farmers. It’s hard to describe the amazing momentum of support behind myAgro’s model. What’s most exciting for the myAgro team is that small-‐scale farmers, like Maritou Samake, are the ones leading the way. Maritou is a farmer in Sanambele village who registered with us in December to plant a half-‐hectare of peanuts. After listening to a training on how to access markets led by myAgro’s Business Associate, Maritou returned to the meeting with her husband and 200 pounds of peanuts to sell. Marietou sold her peanuts, and then promptly turned to the village vendor (a myAgro partner) and bought a savings card of 10,000 CFA (~$20) towards her $48 savings goal. Marietou inspired her neighbors and the myAgro team by demonstrating the effectiveness and power of being able to save right at harvest time for inputs of next year. Not suprisingly several others followed Maritou’s example. To date, we’ve enrolled 342 farmers in our maize, sorghum and peanuts program who in total, have saved over 25% towards their savings goal in preperation for planting this rainy season. It’s clear that small-‐scale farmers see the benefits of having a safe way to make committed savings towards fertilizer and seed for the rainy season. Even in the days following Mali’s recent coup, farmers continued to make saving payments via SMS. At such an uncertain time politically, it is even more critical that there are persistent ways for small-‐scale farmers to invest in their farms and contribute to the food security of the country. Instead of raising millions in food aid, which is unsustainable and often counter productive, myAgro believes that we can be a catalyst and help farmers use their own capital more effectively to increase their income, season after season. Our pilot is testing several unique and innovative components to help small-‐scale farmers get out poverty, permanently: 1) Savings-‐led Finance: Farmers can choose fertilizer and certified seed packages (maize, sorghum and peanut) and then make flexible savings payments towards their planting package throughout the year. 2) Local Network: We partner with village stores that have an existing customer base and infrastructure to collect savings payments from farmers. This helps us grow our customer numbers more effectively in rural, hard to reach areas. We track savings payments using a simple SMS technology that mirrors the way people by minutes for the phone in developing countries. 3) Increased Productivity: We then train farmers on modern planting techniques to increase their harvests on larger tracts of land. We support farmers to plant more efficiently by providing them with a small labor loan to either rent an ox and plow or buy a local seeding machine, which will result in more growing more food per hectare. 4) Improved Market Access We negotiate contracts with large-‐scale buyers in the capital to connect rural farmers to the growing urban market and incentivize farmers to use a part of their profits to start saving immediately for next year’s planting. Anushka Ratnayake, Founder and Director
Women’s Peanut Program •100+ women enrolled in 3 villages •50% of women joined myAgro •$25 average savings goal •42% saved to date towards goal
Women in Mali often plant separately than their husbands. While they often provide labor for the men’s fields, women are given small fields, usually far away from their homes to plant on their own. myAgro women have the opportunity to save for fertilizer and seed for 1/16 , 1/8, ¼ and ½ hectare of peanuts – and their husbands are beginning to value the women’s financial contributions by planning early and selecting better land for their wives to cultivate! Women, have turned out to be enthusiastic savers, saving over 42% of their savings goal to date. They earn their money from village savings groups where women come together, save $1 every week and take turns giving each other loans with the savings accumulated. In fact, there are 400,000 women farmers who participate in savings groups like these that we hope to reach in the years to come! Through our program, women can save for fertilizer and seed and then qualify for trainings on how to plant, weed, harvest and store their peanuts for longer. We’re also ensuring that every step of the way, farmers ensure they’re avoiding a fungus called aflotoxin. We’re hoping to find a market for high-‐quality peanuts in the fortified peanut butter sector which 1) will help myAgro farmers earn a higher-‐than market price and 2) support efforts to help malnourished children in Northern Mali. Maimouna Coulibaly, a group leader in Sanambele village is excited about the savings aspect most of all. She told us recently:
“I love savings because it suits me more. I can progress and pay when I have money, it's easier.”
Women in Mali Women in Mali face a number of barriers – lack of access to land, low literacy levels and less access to formal education. The average women has roughly X years of schooling, 6.4 children and cultivates a small piece of land to grow vegetables. Our women’s program logo, the baobob, represents strength, creativity and endurance -‐ all adjectives that aptly describe the amazing women in the myAgro program! We hope to grow our peanut program from 3 villages to 20 in the next year.
Men’s Cereals Program • 200+ men enrolled • Average $100 savings goal • 35% progress to date • Growing on average 1 HA of Maize
Farmer’s Radio myAgro has a weekly radio program that reaches 2 entire communes (~80 villages) which helps us build legitamacy in the eyes of farmers. As one farmer told us “I heard about your program on the radio and now I believe you! If you tell everyone the same thing you told me, it means a lot!” Our programs are a mix of farmer interviews, trainings and call-‐ins with prominent people in the agricultural sector. Here, the mayor gets interviewed – he became a member afterwards!
We have two men’s programs – sorghum and maize, both two of the top three cereals grown in Mali. On average, our maize and sorghum farmers have signed up for roughly 1 hectare of inputs, and are 37% towards their savings goal. Farmers we surveyed were using seed from their father’s generation – some seeds were even 20 years old and producing less than 1 ton per hectare. For the same amount of labor, plus a little bit more of their savings, farmers can expect to grow 4-‐5 tons per hectare with myAgro! The private seed sector is less developed in Mali and the idea of buying seeds is still relatively uncommon. To movitate farmers, we’re giving farmers a small loan (roughly ¼ of the the total package cost) to buy certified seed. Certified seed has gone through a natural breeding process and has been certified by Mali’s Agricultural Ministry as having been grown under strict conditions to ensure quality. In addition to getting the seeds on loan, farmers can also elect to get a labor loan to pay for ox and plow. While in modern farming, microdosing fertilizer is known as the best way to increase harvests and profitibility, for farmers with large land sizes, it would be impossible to add a teaspoonful of DAP for every single plant – there are more than 10,000 plants in 1 hectare! By giving a loan for farmers to rent an oxen and plow, we double the amount of land farmers can cultivate in one day which gives them more time to do more labor intensive, but profit-‐making steps like microdosing.
SMS Payments • 1200 savings payments to date • On track to collect $12,000 in
program revenue • Transparent database
We’ve partner with viillage vendors – existing store owners – in the villages where we work to sell savings cards to farmers. They earn a comission every time a farmer meets their savings goal, and is invested in helping remind farmers about the opportunity to save every time they go to shop. Partnering with the village vendors helps us build on existing infrastructure – there are litererally hundreds of thousands of these stores in even the most remote villages that provide everything that villagers need for their home. By enabling the vendors to sell savings cards, we’ve essentially turned their stores into decentralized banks where farmers can safely and conveniently save their money for fertilizer and seed. See a short 3 minute video on how our SMS and database work!
Vendor Assistants Vendors and their assistants get regular trainings, feedback and marketing support to increase their savings card sales. Here, Coulibaly reviews some marketing photos with Fassoli, who is learning how to motivate farmers. Fassoli himself is a member, who’s saved for over 1 HA of maize and counting! He also learned how to send an SMS for the first time and helps other farmers send their sms payments throughout the week.
Q: What do you wish for your farm this year?
“To grow more revenue with myAgro! With myAgro and rains, I will have a great
harvest!” -‐ Seydou Coulibaly,
Karako Village
Help myAgro grow as well! Your donation will help us develop our pilot program further, increase our reach and impact with farmers and help increase food security at a critical time in Mali’s history! To help myAgro grow more, donate securely via our fiscal sponsor, Trust for Conservation Innovation: Or email [email protected] for more information.
Thanks to our supporters, funders and volunteers for all of their help to grow
myAgro!