Norm Siekman Working In Iringa 2018

The Iringa Hope Office on the campus of the University of Iringa.  The Building was sponsored by the Peter J. King Family Foundation.

Hello, my name is Norm Siekman.  This is my third trip to Tanzania, and my first trip as a member of the Board of Directors of Iringa Hope.  During this trip I will assist the staff of Iringa Hope in Iringa in the development of the Iringa Hope Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Society (AMCOS).  I will share a description of the functions of that cooperative in the paragraphs below.

First, I will share a little history of my work with Iringa Hope.  My first trip to Tanzania was in October 2014, as part of a group led by Peggy Howell coming to Iringa from Zion Lutheran Church to visit our partner parish of Kitapalimwa.  Each of the ten of us coming to Iringa had a project that we wanted to share with the members of the parish in Kitapalimwa.  My project was to assist the village of Kitapalimwa in the initial development of their Savings and Credit Cooperative Society (SACCOS) to provide Micro Finance loans to its members.

During that two and a half week visit in 2014, we stayed in the hamlet of Mlangali, at the home of Pastor Regina Kibasa and visited each of the twelve preaching points surrounding Kitapalimwa. Ryan Engelstad, the nurse with our group, held a medical clinic in each of the villages, assisted by other members of the group.

In 2016, I returned to the parish of Kitapalimwa with the group representing Zion Lutheran Church in Cottage Grove.  This time I spent half of the time in Mlangali and half of the time with the staff of Iringa Hope as they were leading training for the officers of each of the Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOS) that manage the Micro Finance loans in each of 33 villages where Iringa Hope has a presence. 

I left Minneapolis on Monday, June 11, arrived in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday June 12, and after an all-day drive from Dar es Salaam, arrived in Iringa last evening on Wednesday, June 13.  So this is my first day in the Iringa Hope office where I will be working from now through the first week of August.  The office is located in the Peter J. King Family Foundation building on the campus of the University of Iringa. I was greeted on my arrival by the familiar faces of the staff of the Micro Finance Institute (the MFI has recently been spun off from the University as a non profit called the Community Micro-finance Strengthening Organization - the CMSO).  I had met nearly everyone during my last two visits in 2014 and 2016.

For this visit, I was asked by Dr. Tom Hendrickson, the Chairman of our Iringa Hope Board of Directors in Minnesota to come to Iringa to assist the staff in Iringa in the Development of the new function provided by Iringa Hope, the Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Society (AMCOS).  The SACCOS and the AMCOS are two types of cooperatives in Tanzania that are registered with the Tanzania Cooperatives Development Commission (TCDC) established in Tanzania by the Cooperative Societies Act.

Our first SACCOS location was established in 2008 at the village of Ihemi, under the leadership of Tom Hendrickson.  Since then the network of SACCOS offices providing Micro Finance loans has grown to 33 locations. 

In the small villages in the region of Iringa, farmers are typically farming two to four acres of crops, in most cases, Maize.   They are aware of modern farming practices, such as using hybrid seeds, instead of the traditional seeds from the previous year’s crop and using fertilizer, but unless they have the money saved, or have access to credit, in most cases, they aren’t able to afford the expense of purchasing hybrid seed and fertilizer. 

With the access to credit available through micro finance provided by the Iringa Hope SACCOS, many farmers can now afford to buy better seed and fertilizer.

However, access to credit alone doesn’t help if quality seeds and fertilizer aren’t available at the right time, at a reasonable price.  Each AMCOS cooperative, managed by officers elected by local members, will, with the assistance of the Iringa Hope staff, be able to access seed, fertilizer and other farming inputs.  These will be delivered to their village location, at prices that they would not be able to have obtained by buying through distributors.

So this year, working with the Iringa Hope staff, we are assisting villages to organize local AMCOS cooperatives, which are registered with the government.  There is a Joint AMCOS organization, with its own elected officers and Board of Directors that coordinates the activities of each of the local AMCOS cooperatives and aggregates the orders of supplies from each of the separate locations.  We then develop contracts with the major suppliers of farming inputs for the aggregated demand forecasted by each of the AMCOS.

In our first meeting with the staff we discussed the objectives for my stay and the objectives for establishing AMCOS organizations in potentially each of the 33 SACCOS locations offering micro finance loans.  Our plan is to meet with major suppliers of fertilizer, seeds, herbicides, insecticides, and any other supply products needed by the members.  We are also meeting with the major buyers of agricultural crops that our members raise to determine ways to obtain the best prices for their products.

 Following our meeting the MFI Executive Director, Enock Ugulumu, accompanied us on a visit to the executives at the University of Iringa and then on to visit General Secretary Nayman Chavalla and Pastor Lusungu Msigwa at the Iringa Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania.  After this day of meetings, we are on to beginning our work on AMCOS development.