Irene Khaoya joined One Acre Fund in August 2008 as the bookkeeper for Chwele District, Kenya. Chwele District has doubled in size in the past year, and Irene’s responsibilities have grown—she now manages the books for a team of over thirty field officers.

When you first joined One Acre Fund, what did your duties include?

I worked on the roster database [to track client enrollment and repayment] and often went into the field to check compliance and assist the field staff as needed.

How has the job changed since then?

When I started working, I was doing field work most of the time, but now I am mostly based in the office entering data and carrying out other office duties.

How would you describe the growth of your technical skills?

When I first starting working for One Acre Fund, they were not so good. As time went by, they really improved. My typing was much better with practice, and I even learned how to work with databases using Microsoft Access.

Do bookkeepers generally prefer being in the field or in the office?

They like being in the office more because they can understand the program as a whole and not just what is happening in the field. They have a bigger picture of everything that’s going on in the organization

Does the bookkeeper’s input ever change how things are done in the field? Yes. For example, when a problem arises with repayment collection, the bookkeeper can talk to her field director and give suggestions about how to improve the system. She can suggest changes in field policy because she knows where there’s a problem and where improvements can be made.

So the bookkeeper is like the right hand man of the field director?

Yes.

Even though there is only one bookkeeper per district, do One Acre Fund’s bookkeepers feel like a team?

We definitely feel like we’re a team. While I run duties in Chwele, a bookkeeper in another district might have a problem and contact me to know how to solve it. During our [monthly] bookkeeper meetings, we interact and share how we can improve our performance on the job.

What is a work week like for a bookkeeper?

Monday: Run the district meeting and collect repayment from the field officers.

Tuesday: Data entry on the roster database and quality control to ensure that I’ve completed all the entries and to see if there are any problems.

Wednesday: Sometimes I’m sent out into the field to do compliance or data accuracy checks.

Thursday/Friday: I sit down with the field director to plan ahead on the coming week, determining the materials or possible policy changes that need to be made.

What are some of the highlights of being a bookkeeper?

So many people respect us and trust us with the money. Whenever we collect repayment, we ensure that it’s banked and that field staff have a rough figure of what each farmer has paid and his remaining balance. We are conversant with almost all the farmers in each location. We feel highly appreciated and like being able to see the bigger picture of One Acre Fund.

What are some of the challenges?

We are responsible for a lot of cash! Also, we interact with all levels of the field staff, so we are constantly attending to the needs of the many field officers, field managers, and field directors.

Are you a farmer yourself?

I do farm. I hire other people to plant on my land, and I teach them the One Acre Fund technique so I can get a good harvest. If you compare someone who’s used the One Acre Fund technique and one who hasn’t, there’s a very big difference. It’s a lot of work but the end result is good.

Pauline Wanjala is a field manager in Webuye District, Kenya. She manages five field officers who serve nearly 500 farmers. She is also part of our fast-track management training program for talented staff.

How did you first become interested in agriculture?

From childhood, I played around with jembes [agriculture tool] and planted some crops. Seeing them grow has always made me happy.

I took advice from my parents who said that if you take up agriculture, you will be in a better position in life. Other industries have very high competition, but in agriculture competition for jobs is less, and so they encouraged me to go into agriculture.

What was your background before coming to One Acre Fund?

I completed my B.S in Horticulture at Egerton University [near Nakuru, Kenya]. Afterwards, I worked with Nzoia [Sugar Company] as a head woman, in charge of harvest and managing the cane cutters.  After Nzoia, I joined One Acre Fund in 2008.

Describe how you started working with One Acre Fund and your progression to field manager.

I came in as a Field Officer in Lutacho [village], where we were planting soya beans as part of a trial.

How long was it before you were promoted to field manager?

I joined in August 2008 and was promoted in October of the same year.

Did you grow anything for yourself this year?

I rented a shamba [piece of land] where I planted 1/2 acre of maize. It is doing very well.

What skills have you developed at One Acre Fund?

One Acre Fund has taught me how to work in teams and how to develop leadership skills. When you are in charge of more than six people and over 1,000 farmers, it makes you feel as if you are really capable. I see that I have made the right career choice. There is no other job I would want to do.   The job that we do makes us tough and able to handle any problems we encounter. I wish to be here a very a long time because I know we are growing and expanding!

What are some of the biggest challenges you have faced at One Acre Fund?

During enrollment, it is challenging because you are enrolling farmers whose background you don’t know. You find that farmers pretend to be good during enrollment, but when it comes to repayment, you see their real faces. That is when you learn that the farmer you recruited is not the same farmer you are facing for repayment. During enrollment meetings, you find that they are very punctual. But during repayment, you might not even see someone for weeks and weeks.

How do you deal with that challenge?

You visit the farmer in the early part of the year and try to collect 100 Ksh [$1.30 USD] one week, maybe 50 Ksh [$0.75 USD] the next week, so you can determine if later this farmer will either give you a headache or will give you a smooth way. One farmer will come and pay 500 Ksh [$6 USD] and then come the next week and pay 800 Ksh [$10 USD]. This is a farmer that will go smoothly. But if there is a farmer who comes with 20 Ksh [$0.30 USD] and he has a full acre of credit for 8,000 Ksh [$100 USD], if he pays 20 or 50 or 80 Ksh per week, he will have problems with repayment. But if you keep persisting with that farmer week after week, you can solve that problem.

What are your strategies for managing your team?

Once we have a problem, we always put it on the table so each and every field officer talks about the problems or challenges he or she is facing in their location. At the same time, we are going to share the successes. So when we find something that works in one location, another location copies it and goes to implement it in their location.

What do you enjoy the most about working at One Acre Fund?

With other organizations, you are only given the job to do. But in One Acre Fund you are given the job to do and the way to do it. What I like most is that I am told, for instance, to go collect repayment. But that is not the only thing I am told. I am told you are supposed to do this and that to go for repayment. So they always give me directions and support. When I am stuck, there is that team that comes to pull you up – you are not left alone.

How has the management training program helped you?

It is giving me a clearer picture of the organization and is telling me that I am a leader and that I am supposed to lead a good number of people.  I am looking forward to leading as many people as I can, at the district level and beyond.

Evans Libeya, One Acre Fund’s horticulture manager, is in charge of executing One Acre Fund’s agricultural trials in Kenya. Evans typically leads four or five experiments at a time, testing things from seed quality to spacing to fertilizer dosage. It’s a busy job, but someone’s gotta do it.

What is your agricultural background?

Of course I am a farmer, but I also received a certificate in nursery management from the Kenya Horticultural Development Program.

How did you get started at One Acre Fund?

I was working with another organization doing horticulture trials of passion fruit. While I was there Andrew Youn [OAF founder] visited and saw my work and was interested. I joined as nursery manager [in 2007] and started the OAF nursery to produce passion fruit tree seedlings for our farmers. Immediately we started doing trials of maize and beans as well.  We tested germination rates, overall yields, and did tests with chemical fertilizers.

How did the nursery help develop the current maize package?

We always test a package before giving it to farmers. We purchase small amounts of seed from distributors and run germination tests and then purchase [in bulk] based on the results. And we also need to standardize the package, to know how much seed and fertilizer to give for 1/2 [an acre] and a full acre, so we do tests changing the seed spacing and fertilizer per hole.

After we finish nursery tests, we do tests in the field. In one trial we take ten farmers and have five plant their seed at one depth and five at another. After they harvest, we compare the yields. At another site we had two groups, one using insecticide and one not. We ran a lot of tests like this to find a good package.

How many trials are you running currently?

We are doing three trials with maize. One is about spacing, another is using a cowpea intercrop, and the third is a test of planting two seeds in one hole.

We are also doing a bean seed dormancy test where we plant bean seed from the same supply at the same time each month to see if there is different germination during different months. We are also doing germination and yield trials for beans we might buy later [this year]. We are testing ten varieties to make sure our farmers get the best one.

What are your other responsibilities?

For farmer trainings I always prepare demo kits for the field officers. They use these kits of seed and fertilizer to teach our methods to the farmers.

Why is your role important?

Before One Acre Fund releases anything to farmers they have to do the trial—meaning, whatever we come out with, it is the best.

What is the most challenging part of your job?

Seeing farmers not succeed because of weather. We work so hard to test our seed and train our farmers that it is frustrating to see us not get the same results with farmers because of weather.

What are you most proud of about your work with One Acre Fund?

One Acre Fund is important because I find that when I talk to the first farmers we started with, they will tell you we have really changed their lives. The farmers can feed their families throughout the year, something that was not happening before. We find that if a farmer was harvesting two bags from 1/2 acre, they are now harvesting more than ten.  This makes me proud.