Today we are starting our
visit at Pomerini. The SACCOS and AMCOS
combined have 177 members. There are 93
men and 84 women. Of the 177 members, 65
are members of the AMCOS
Out of the 177 members of the
SACCOS, all took loans last year except 5 members, who did not qualify for a
loan because they were new members. A total of TSH 87,000,000 (about $38,500) was
loaned last year. TSH 27,000,000 (about
$12,000) was loaned from the local SACCOS loan capital. TSH 60,000,000 (about $26,500) were funds
obtained from the Joint SACCOS.
Once again, there was a lot of discussion and many questions during our presentation of how the SACCOS and the
AMCOS would work together.
One suggestion that was
made was that, if the vouchers that their SACCOS issues for the purchase of
farming input supplies was going to use the same form as government vouchers,
then we need to have our vouchers labeled differently to avoid confusion.
Another issue was the very low price of maize. Not only is the price low, but there are no buyers for their maize, especially in Pomerini, which is far from the
market in Iringa. No buyer wants to
drive this far to pick up bags of maize for resale in Iringa.
The Secretary asked, "Now that
the SACCOS and AMCOS is growing so large, have you thought of the AMCOS taking on
the responsibility of value-added processing, such as milling maize into
flour?" This suggestion has been made a
number of times at other AMCOS meetings. After
much discussion, everyone came to the conclusion that we may want to do that in
the future. In the short term, we should
identify individuals that may want to invest in the equipment and start a
business of milling and investigate working with them and selling to them. Right now we need to focus on our immediate objective of ensuring that all the AMCOS are organized, registered, and prepared to begin
functioning.
There was a significant
discussion of whether farming can be profitable by producing maize with the low
price of TZH 330 per kilo. Some members
thought that raising maize would not be profitable at that price. Some have said that implementing good farming
practices with the use of fertilizer and hybrid seed is necessary to increase
the yield to be profitable. It was
suggested that sunflower seed would be a more profitable alternative at the
current prices. We may see a larger
shift to diversify away from maize during this coming planting season.
Once again there was significant
discussion at this meeting but we still had time for two interviews at
Pommerini.
Our first interview was with
Anna Ngilangwa. She has been a SACCOS
member for five years. She is married
with six children and seven grandchildren.
Her first loan was for TZH 1,000,000 to purchase seed and
fertilizer for her farm of two acres.
She was able to produce 40 bags of maize (A bag weighs 50 Kg.). She was able to generate a good profit, after
repaying her loan of TZH 500,000. She used some of her profits to send her children to school. With the rest she bought some small pigs to raise for the market.
Our next interview was with
Nehemia Magedenge, the Chairman of the SACCOS.
He is married with five children.
Two of his children are in college and three children are in primary school.
His oldest child is at the University of Iringa studying Community
Development. His other child is at the
University at Mafinga and is studying Electrical Engineering.
Nehemia farms 10 acres. He has planted three acres in trees and the
other seven acres are planted with maize, beans, green beans, potatoes and
tomatoes and some sunflowers. He raises
livestock including dairy cows, goats, pigs and chickens.
Nehemia has clearly been very
successful in his business. The Micro Finance
loans have enabled him to purchase more livestock and grow his business income
and have enabled him to fund his children’s college education.
I asked him about what he
thought would be his biggest challenge as chairman of the SACCOS. He said that many people are hearing about
the success of the SACCOS and he sees a growing number of people who want to
join the SACCOS, but with limited capital he wonders how they will fund the loans. Overall though he anticipates a lot more growth in the coming years.
After finishing our interviews, we are on our to Kitowo
Kitowo
At the start of our meeting in Kitowo we presented our flow charts
on the interactions between the SACCOS and the AMCOS. Again there was much discussion and many
questions.
The chairman of the SACCOS
stated that there was a problem with the chairman of the AMCOS. He said that, “He has been vacated. He is no longer here.” They will need to elect a new chairman. At first this seemed like bad news. However on reflection we realized that this is a good sign! It shows that our organization is managing itself and our members are willing to take action when
action needs to be taken.
There was a question about
whether non-members can participate and buy through the AMCOS.
This is a question that has come up in the past. We explained that, indeed, non-members can
purchase supplies through the AMCOS, but they will not be able to take a loan
through the SACCOS and the AMCOS may decide that they will pay a discounted price,
but not the low discounted price for supplies that will be available to members
of the AMCOS.
Another question was asked about whether a member could take out a loan for supplies if they only have minimum
savings. We responded that the loans
from the SACCOS are handled the same way as they were before the creation of
the AMCOS. That is, a member must have
one third of the amount of the loan that they would like to take, in savings in
the SACCOS.
Another question was asked
about how the Joint AMCOS expenses were funded.
We responded that the cost of supplies will be marked up by a percentage
sufficient to cover the expenses of the Joint AMCOS. This is possible because we will receive a
price from the supplier that is better than the price that members could obtain
otherwise, because we are dealing directly with the suppliers.
There was a lot of good discussion, but we also found time for two interviews at Kitowo.
Our next interview is with Devotha Msilu. She is married and has three children. She has a son who is 12 years old, a daughter
who is 6 years old and a son who is one year old.
Devotha farms one acre of maize.
She has been a member of the SACCOS for six years.
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