Farmers Break Cycle of Poverty

By Debbie DeVoe

When Catholic Relief Services encouraged Elizabeth Kasemi to try her hand at growing chickpeas, she really couldn't be bothered. It sounded like a lot of work for a 50-year-old, with no clear proof of a payoff in the end. But Elizabeth, who lives in Mwanza region of Tanzania, decided to give it a try.

She leased two acres of land for $23 and amazed herself by earning a profit of $311. With that income, she bought materials to build a new house for herself and her husband, including a roof of shiny corrugated iron. And she started singing chickpea's praises. "My aim is to continue to grow chickpea to help raise the standard of our lives," she says.

Elizabeth isn't the only villager excited about chickpea farming and self-help agriculture groups in the Lake Victoria area. CRS' Chickpea Market Promotion project, funded by private donations from the Ryan Memorial Foundation, began in 2005 with the modest target of forming 10 groups that would each pool and collectively sell their chickpea harvests. Two years later, more than 3,800 farmers have now organized into 149 farmers' groups that have collectively sold 1,600 tons of chickpea, earning a gross income of more than $500,000. As importantly, new groups are forming each month, independently started by community members who recognize the impact of this work.

'Let Us Help Ourselves'

The names of the groups — including "Let Us Help Ourselves" and "Self-Reliance" — make it clear that these farmers are not looking for a handout. CRS offers the jump-start they desperately need by providing training in business and agricultural skills, giving farmers access to improved varieties of seeds, connecting them to larger markets, and showing members how to create Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILCs). Farmers can then take advantage of resulting agricultural advancements, collective bargaining opportunities and access to loan capital to maximize their income-earning potential.

Farmers in the SILC groups have seen a 50 percent increase in sales revenue by working together to bag, grade and weigh chickpeas before selling them collectively and directly to an exporter. SILC groups also take advantage of the growing availability of mobile phones — managers of the collection centers get prevailing market prices each day through text messages on the phones, enabling groups to coordinate and negotiate better prices.

As part of the training provided by CRS' local partner, Mwanza Rural Housing Project, farmers like Nyangwakwa Philipo learn how middlemen often take a large cut and offer unfair prices by measuring crops by basket or bag instead of by actual weight. Nyangwakwa says he increased his chickpea yield by 50 percent and doubled his price through collective selling in the SILC group.

"I didn't know that one day I would live in a good house," says Nyangwakwa, who constructed a solid home for his family after a good harvest and a loan of $55 from his SILC group. "I will never sell my crops [again] through middlemen using basket selling."

The SILC groups also encourage members to save a small percentage of their income each week, usually the equivalent of about 50 cents. While this sum may seem paltry, the savings add up, and collectively create a pool of money against which members can apply for internal microloans. These small loans, typically between $10 and $50, can make a huge difference. Lacking collateral or access to conventional banking systems, poor families in remote areas often have no other way to access external loans. Members use these sums to lease more land, hire more labor, purchase additional tools, or start small shops or businesses. Farmers then use the resulting profits to pay back the loan with interest and reinvest in their business.

"Savings combined with access to capital also let farmers bridge the gap during times of drought and food insecurity," explains Edward Charles, CRS Tanzania's agriculture technical advisor. "When droughts occur, families can buy a little extra food instead of eating the seeds they set aside for planting the next season. Savings also give farmers a critical financial cushion that lets them wait until they are offered a fair price for their crops instead of having to sell at any cost."

"The most important thing a country needs to do is to be able to feed itself and help its people to do so," adds Dr. Michael Ryan, a trustee of the Ryan Memorial Foundation, founded in his father's name. "By helping farmers to build sustainable incomes through chickpea farming and gain access to self-supported microloans, this project gives families the start they need to improve their lives and their communities."

Security Into the Future

The visible success of the early SILC groups has prompted a huge demand for training in other communities, some of which have organized and funded their own trainings by members of the original SILC group. Farmers' groups have also started adapting skills learned through the project to produce and collectively market other crops, including rice, pigeon pea, cotton, sesame and groundnuts. With this type of popular demand, the groups have great potential to sustain themselves in the long run.

The effects of this project go beyond financial benefits. In Tanzania, women have traditionally provided most of the agricultural labor, but played little or no role in marketing their crops, and often wielded little influence on financial decisions affecting their communities. But more than half of SILC group members are women, and women make up nearly half of the leadership at collection centers.

The SILC groups also provide a valuable security net within the communities. Most groups have members contribute small amounts to social and education funds, which enable the groups to support fellow villagers in times of need.

This sort of social security is as important as increasing incomes in a community, as it prevents farmers from slipping back into the crushing cycle of poverty. In fact, one SILC chairwoman, Angelina Maligisa, calls her group a "savior." When her husband died, she refused to be inherited, a common practice in East Africa whereby widows are given to one of their husband's (often already married) relatives. Now living with her large family of 21 people, which includes many children and grandchildren, she deeply appreciates her group's emotional support, her larger chickpea harvests, and the iron roofing sheets, furniture, utensils and bicycle she's been able to purchase with loans from her SILC group.

And at 58, she's proud to share her new nickname: "No hunger."

Debbie DeVoe is CRS' regional information officer for East Africa. She is based in Nairobi and has visited projects in Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.