Iringa Hope visits 2014: Kiponzelo

Kiponzelo is an easy 70 minute drive southwest of Iringa. After leaving the tarmac, a dirt road leads past several villages. As you get close to Kiponzelo you will see a cliff edge rising in the distance. Kiponzelo lies near the edge of the ridge traveling west from Iringa. It is a pretty drive, especially as you approach the village and can see the cliff in the distance. As we came up to Kiponzelo we spotted some familiar folks walking along the road. The Agricultural folks visited Kiponzelo today too.

In the meeting room the SACCOS chairman greeted us and apologized for the small turn out (there were 37 members at the meeting). There were two other meetings going on in the village today – a village election and a planning meeting for a large funeral. Actually, about 33% of the SACCOS members were present, which we consider to be good.

Following introductions Peter and Request gave lessons on borrowing and using money. While they are giving their talks Tom went out and wandered around a bit. The school had just let out so there were lots of kids wandering about. At first they were afraid of Tom – there were many shouts of “Wazungu!” and many running feet. After awhile some of the girls came over and wanted to touch Tom’s head while they said “shikamoo”, a traditional greeting of respect which requires the response “marahaba”. Then, of course, Tom, the candy man, had to hand out candy. Soon there were more kids than candy and everyone was giggling.

Fortunately for Tom, Peter came out about then and told him that he and Request were finished with their presentations and that Sandy had three people prepared to be interviewed. There is a lot of excitement here about this SACCOS. They have been here only one year and already they have 85 members and a waiting list of over 300. This village seems to be very progressive and has some good leaders.

Our first interview was with Samuel Bangi, 39, married with two children. His mother also lives with his family so he is supporting 5 people. He took out a loan for $600 to help him plant his maize crop. He has not harvested but maize prices are already low and the weather has not been the best so he is only expecting a profit of about $550 from his crop. He tells us that one of the problems here is that they do not have much access to the maize markets. Most of the maize is sold to traders in trucks who come to the village. Their prices are very low, but currently there is no other option.

Agnes Mgimwa is a 70 year old widow who lives alone. Her husband was a civil servant who retired to Kiponzelo and died 6 years later. She took out a loan of $400 to plant ½ acre of maize and ½ acre of beans. She also is worried about the low prices that people are getting. She is sure she will make a profit from her loan (maybe $400 or so?) but it will not be what she expected when she planted. She tells us that there used to be two groups that would market their products but they both are gone now.

So what happened to these groups? Tom went to see the chairman of the SACCOS to find out. He told us that there was a government AMCOS here (an AMCOS is an Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Society) which got better prices for the crops, but the government officials stole all of the money and it went broke.

The second group was a private, family owned AMCOS here. It gave everyone fertilizer and seed on credit and then took in the crops to store and sell when prices were better. The first few who got their corps into this AMCOS got paid, but when most of the crops were brought in the AMCOS sold them and took the money and left – so the farmers got nothing.

So why do the farmers not form their own AMCOS and run it themselves? “We have thought about it but we need help to train us, do the legal work, and guide us to organize. We also think that it will need a little capital to get started. We are hoping Iringa Hope will help us.” Maybe.

Finally we talked to Rehema Kasinga, a 53 year old widow with 6 children at home. Her husband got sick and slowly died when the children were in primary school so there was no money available to send them to secondary school. She has borrowed $200 to plant maize. Like the other people we interviewed, she expects low prices and a poor growing season to limit her profit to maybe $150-200. She will use this money for tuition for her youngest child, who is still in primary school. She hopes that next year she can get a loan for $400. “With that I can plant my whole field using fertilizer and good seed. Then I can send some of the children to secondary school.”

Currently this SACCOS has 8,500,000 TZS in capital (about $5,500). We also arranged for Iringa Hope to lend them another 8,000,000 TZS. Still, they had a waiting list of 41 people for loans. They don’t want to admit any more members since they don’t have enough capital to support them. We will see if Iringa Hope will have the capital to support them.

Over chia we talk a little about what the SACCOS might do to help the people here. It seems that there is a real need for jobs in Kiponzelo – but we assure them that that is something our SACCOS are creating in other locations – so we believe that will happen here too. They also need to have their SACCOS sell them seed and fertilizer. The problem seems to be that the local dealers get their fertilizer too late for the fields and the seed they sell them often does not germinate.

Tom explained how other SACCOS have started to do this.

He also mentioned that there will be another business plan competition this year so they should have a good plan.