In July, One Acre Fund opened a trial district in a low-rainfall area of Nyanza Province.  Six new field officers enrolled over 1,000 farmers in the program. From November 2010 to March 2011, these farmers will plant trees and beans using quality inputs and trainings designed to work in low-rainfall conditions. Phelix Wasonga is one of the new field officers working in the trial district. At twenty-two years old, he is the youngest of the field officers, but he was the most successful at enrollment, registering almost 300 members himself.

What did you do before you joined One Acre Fund?

I worked with Kenya Scouts as a scout leader and a trainer in peer counseling for HIV/AIDS and other issues which affect youth. We would bring people together for trainings or conduct counseling sessions at schools. I was also a volunteer English teacher in a secondary school.

How did you get started at One Acre Fund?

I learned of One Acre Fund through flyers asking for serious people who wanted to work with the community, specifically farmers. I was interested because I want to see many people succeed. When I saw the advertisement, I knew the job was for me. It was a tough interview, but God saw me through it.

What about One Acre Fund interested you?

There is so much hunger in my community. We have no way to fight that hunger except hard work. With One Acre Fund inputs we now have the capability to fight that hunger. I enjoy seeing people prove that they can fight hunger.

What are your primary responsibilities as a field officer during enrollment?

I work six days per week directly with farmers. I visit them. I know their plans and dreams. And their problems. The key is to mobilize them and impart knowledge, to teach them that their future is in their hands.

Every week I set goals. For example, if today I want to sign up fifteen members, I identify groups with low membership, and I make an appointment with the leader of that group. I meet them and then discuss steps to make that group strong.

What do you say to farmers to convince them to join?

I tell them if you join One Acre Fund there is a short-term investment and a long-term investment. Short-term is beans. Long-term is trees. The longer you let the trees grow, the more you will earn. Your loan is a small loan, and you can earn much more if you follow our trainings and work hard.

I also tell them that One Acre Fund gives you a sense of unity through our group work.  Always where people are united, big things will happen. They plant together. They solve problems together. And always they have the desire to achieve.

What were the challenges enrolling farmers, and how did you overcome them?

When I first started I faced many challenges when looking for members. I met hostility from farmers who have been hurt by other organization that had come and taken money and done nothing. I had to build trust to change that. My community knows me because I grew up there. That is important.

You enrolled more farmers than any other field officer in the low-rainfall program. What is the secret to your success?

Proper planning of my work. When I set goals, I always work toward them. By the end of the day I will always achieve my goals as I have planned them.

If only one person plants one hundred trees, nothing happens. If everyone in the community plants one hundred trees, the world is different. I will only be proud if I see that many people benefit and have more food.

What are your favorite activities outside of work?

Outside of work I have a good taste for books. I read them everywhere I am when I’m not at work. I spend almost any day off reading. I also enjoy filling out puzzles in the newspaper.

What do you hope to accomplish during your career with the One Acre Fund low-rainfall program?

This is our first year. I would like to see us progress for many years and have many farmers joining because of the benefits they see.

The most important thing is the education and inputs we give to our farmers. Our people do not have the means to purchase the correct inputs, and many times they don’t know how to use them properly. With these inputs and education, our farmers are bound to succeed.

Christine Wafula, a farmer in Chwele District, harvested her maize with help from her family and some of the members of her group. As she shucked maize and threw the cobs into a pile, she talked about the change in her harvest. She estimated that she would harvest 10 bags of maize on ½ acre of land this year. This is a significant improvement—last year she only harvested 3 bags on ½ acre of land.

“With One Acre Fund, we spend little and we harvest much,” she said. “I have come to realize that most of the time, with the way we planted before, we wasted our fertilizer.”

Before joining One Acre Fund, many farmers used a planting method that mixed seed and fertilizer in a long furrow. The fertilizer would often burn the seed, leading to a low harvest.

Nearby, Parnifin Wafula, Christine’s husband, was listening as he shucked maize. He added:

“This was a trial. After seeing how the harvest has been, I am very happy.”

Christine and Parnifin have five children—Brian, Elisa, Aaron, Manuel, and Daniel. They are focused on improving the productivity of their farm and providing for their family. In fact, they are planning to plant beans with One Acre Fund during the short rains season. As soon as they finish harvesting their maize, they will prepare the land for planting beans. Next year, they will take a larger loan from One Acre Fund to plant 1 full acre of maize.

With the harvests she hopes to receive from beans and maize, Christine wants to buy a dairy cow. For now, though, she is happy that she has grown enough maize to feed her entire family.

Increasing client density and average transaction size will also help One Acre Fund move toward financial sustainability (see this blog post for an in-depth discussion of the key factors affecting financial sustainability).

But we will only meet our core program goals if our field staff can execute these changes on the ground. To motivate our staff and align their personal goals with One Acre Fund’s organizational goals, we are rolling out a new compensation structure.

This new structure will compensate field staff based on the total credit amount that they are managing—the overall size of their “loan portfolio.” This will allow us to recognize the additional work that they are doing as well as the positive impact they are having on financial sustainability.

As in any incentive scheme, achievable yet ambitious targets are an important component in our new bonus structure. We have developed a field officer ranking system, from “1 star” to “5 star,” based on the total credit amount managed by that officer. Field officers will be given a “star target” based on the “age” of the site they are working in (i.e. a brand-new site will have different enrollment targets than a third-year site).

Once the enrollment period is complete, field officers will be assigned a field officer rank based on their total credit amount, and their performance-based compensation will kick in. Currently, most of our field officers in Kenya serve roughly 100 clients. We have made next season’s targets aggressive, because we believe that as our program improves, our staff will be able to handle well over 200 clients and much larger credit amounts.

The new system gives performance-based bonuses around two key areas of our operations: total credit under management, and repayment. The bonuses will be divided as follows:

• Enrollment bonus – Field officers will receive a bonus based on the total credit amount they are managing.
• Monthly bonus and airtime increment – Each month throughout the season, field officers will receive a bonus on top of their base salary, as well as an increase in their airtime allowance, to provide ongoing recognition of the work they are doing. This bonus is also tied to total credit under management. We are giving monthly bonuses instead of a permanent raise so that compensation is always tied to credit under management, which could fluctuate from season to season.
• Repayment bonus – Field officers can earn up to 1 percent of their total credit amount as a repayment bonus, assuming they reach 100 percent repayment (which almost all of our field officers do).

Top-performing field officers stand to benefit greatly from this new system. A 2-star field officer – the target we are setting for all returning staff members – can earn 500 to 700 percent of their monthly salary in bonuses throughout the year! This may seem like a lot, but this incentive structure accurately reflects the additional value that field staff will be creating for our farmers and our organization.

One Acre Fund aims to reach over 50,000 farmers in 2011, and over 85,000 farmers in 2012. Our new compensation scheme will help us meet these targets, as well as propel us to serve 1 million farmers by 2020.

Here in Rwanda, as the population has grown, more and more land has been taken under the hoe, at the expense of forests, fallow land, and grazing land. In such an intensive system of cultivation, organic matter is continually in short supply. This shortage presents a big challenge for One Acre Fund’s Rwandan farmers.

One strategy to address the shortage is integrated soil fertility management (ISFM), which combines the use of mineral fertilizers with organic matter. These two types of inputs build off one another, substantially improving the efficiency of both inputs as compared to applying either alone. The macronutrients in fertilizer are immediately available to plant roots and they are better conserved due to the retention power of organic matter. At the same time, the large quantities of nutrients in mineral fertilizers lessen the dependence on the already overstretched supply of organic matter, meaning that nutrient reserves in soil are not depleted.

One Acre Fund supplies farmers with mineral fertilizer, and we provide training on composting to produce more organic matter. But even in this context, it is a challenge for many farmers to get their hands on sufficient quantities of plant and animal remains.

One potential solution is cows. Cows are a popular way to produce organic matter in Rwanda, but few of our farmers own cows. There is a common belief, however, that owning a cow is an economical way to create organic matter. Unfortunately, cows are labor- and land-intensive for farmers. They are almost all raised in zero-grazing systems in which farmers must cut and carry grasses directly to their animals. Many farmers cannot grow enough grass for their cows, which makes it necessary for them to collect grass from the small amount of commons that are left, including roadsides and woodlot floors. The cow’s diet is poor in protein and energy, and cows generally underproduce milk.

Another possible solution is agroforestry. Tree roots dig deep into lower soil layers using nutrients that would otherwise be lost, and recycle them back to the soil surface in the form of leaves. One Acre Fund is beginning to trial nitrogen-fixing fodder shrubs, which can be used to produce rich fodder, mulch, and bean poles, while at the same time restoring nitrogen in the soil. Trees can be difficult for many farmers to adopt because of land shortages, but if they plant along field borders and hill contour lines they can work efficiently, especially if maintained at shrub level.

A final potential source of organic matter is human manure. Most waste streams are effectively recycled, except for human manure (humanure), which is deposited in deep pit latrines. While most people prefer to forget about this waste stream, it can be used safely provided proper composting techniques. While on average each Rwandan family does not produce enough humanure to completely cover its organic matter needs, this resource has the potential to save at least a few ares of fertility for per family per year, which is certainly not insignificant.

Integrated soil fertility management, cows, agroforestry, and human manure are imperfect solutions to supply more organic matter to Rwandan soils. One Acre Fund is exploring all four options because even a small increase in organic matter makes a difference for our farmers. In the long term, however, there must be a reduction in the population growth rate and increased opportunities for off-farm income to significantly reduce the strain on organic matter in Rwanda.

One of the first projects that the nascent marketing department took on was a newsletter. The primary audience for the newsletter was our (at the time) 7,500 clients. We wanted to give our farmers a sense of taking part in a greater community of farmers dedicated to helping one another rather than simply being clients of a service provider.

In addition to sharing One Acre Fund’s organizational successes, highlighting client stories, and answering frequently asked questions, the newsletter was meant to give clients a look into the behind-the-scenes operations of the organization. Most farmers’ knowledge of One Acre Fund is concentrated on the very visible distribution of seed and fertilizer on credit. Additional articles in the newsletter about the monitoring and evaluation department’s survey results, the innovations department’s crop trials, and field operations’ expansion to new districts gave farmers a broader vision of the organization’s value and scope.

Finally, while the main goal of the newsletter was creating community among existing clients, we also realized that the newsletter had the potential to reach many more people. Current clients could share it with their non-client family, friends, and neighbors, spurring increased enrollment. Copies were given to each of our staff members across three districts, fostering team spirit. Newsletters were also distributed to local government leaders, bolstering our reputation in the community.

In theory, the newsletter seemed like a great marketing tool. However, after rolling out the first edition we tried to assess its impact by gathering feedback from farmers and staff. The overwhelming response from farmers was that they would like more photos and less text in the newsletter. While many farmers are indeed literate, it seems that people’s willingness to dedicate time to reading as a leisure activity was low. And while increasing the amount of photos might make farmers happy, it would make the project less effective as an information-sharing tool.

The government leaders we reached, on the other hand, wanted more focus on hard facts. That feedback, combined with the overall cost of printing the newsletter (which would only grow as our client base grew), led us to decide that the newsletter would be most effective targeting government leaders. Most NGOs in Rwanda, including One Acre Fund, produce an annual report that is shared with government leaders. We decided to turn the newsletter into a quarterly mini-report with more articles pinpointing facts and figures pertinent to government agricultural goals.

But we still wanted a tool for marketing to our farmers. Enter radio. Outside our headquarters all day long comes the blare of our neighbors’ radio. From every market and little boutique store the radio waves roll into the streets. Farmers may not have the patience to read a story, but listening is second nature. Radio can also reach a much wider audience than a newsletter.

One Acre Fund’s first radio show has not yet launched, but we are getting close. We have negotiated with Radio Rusizi, which is the nearest government radio broadcaster, to reserve a half-hour show every Sunday evening. The show will focus on One Acre Fund’s “Farmer First” philosophy. We will broadcast interviews with experts, government officials, and farmers; talk about new trainings; answer farmer questions on the air; and advertise a little for joining One Acre Fund. We are currently conducting interviews for radio hosts. We hope to hire two One Acre Fund farmers, a man and a woman, so that their listeners can really identify with them.

It remains to be seen how our farmers will respond to the One Acre Fund radio show. We will report back after a few months on air!

Console, a twenty-five year old farmer who lives near Tyazo village, finished drying her bean seeds in mid-June, and was planning to harvest maize in early August. She joined One Acre Fund one year ago, and was looking forward to her future harvests.

“We have not been hungry since One Acre Fund came,” she said. “We have had very good harvests to satisfy all members of the family.”

Console lives with her mother and her four siblings. She has two younger siblings, who are twelve and six. Uwamariya, the twelve-year old, is not in school right now because the family lacks money for school uniforms and textbooks. However, with the recent bean harvest and the upcoming maize harvest, Console says the family will have enough money for Uwamariya to return to school.

When Uwamariya is out of school, she helps the family by collecting wood and water. But she really likes studying English, and she wants to return to school so that she can eventually become a teacher.

Console has a different goal. “In my life, I like farming,” she said. “We have enough land. My dream is that I can work hard and if I can grow many things I can buy an animal.”

She was particularly interested in new crops that she might learn to cultivate with One Acre Fund, including cassava and bananas.

“We have enough beans now,” she said. “Maybe One Acre Fund can experiment with other crops.”

Next season, One Acre Fund plans to begin offering education on banana planting techniques. Console was excited to hear about the new training.

“Bananas are very important for Rwanda,” she said.

When the maize is on the stalk, it is still filled with water, as with any ripe vegetable. If a farmer does not carefully dry her maize after harvest, fungus can grow and rot the entire crop. If the maize is carefully dried before it is stored, it is still vulnerable to pests, which can chew through storage bags and eat the maize kernels. The drying and storage processes that take place after the maize harvest are essential. Unless a farmer takes the necessary precautions to protect her maize, a grain borer or weevil can destroy the harvest in three short months.

In order to combat post-harvest crop loss, we teach our farmers a five-step harvesting and storage process:

1. Stook maize (let the maize dry while it is still on the stalk).

2. Dry maize on the cob in the sun for a few days.

3. Store maize on the cob in a cool dry place in the house for a few weeks to continue the drying process.

4. Shell the maize, then dry it in the sun again.

5. Sprinkle actellic dust, a chemical that prevents pest infestation, on the kernels and store maize in storage bags until ready to be eaten. Actellic dust protects maize from weevils, and ensures that farmers can keep their harvests safe and pest-free.

Using a substance to protect their maize is not a new concept for our farmers. In the past, some spread ash over their dried maize to prevent pest infestation. This technique only protects maize for around two months, however, and can lead to stomach ulcers when that maize is consumed. There are other commercial chemicals offered, but they are often expensive and ineffective. We have found that actellic dust, when applied correctly, protects maize from pests for up to six months. It is also relatively cheap.

While many of our farmers have used actellic dust in the past, they do not know how to use it effectively. This year, we have modified our harvest and storage trainings to include information on how to properly use and dose actellic dust. Our field officers are also selling packets of actellic dust and storage bags in the field, which allows farmers to save on transportation costs.

If a farmer uses actellic dust correctly, there is an immediate economic impact on his household. One Acre Fund farmers will harvest an average of 15 bags of maize in the main growing season, which is just enough to feed the average family of eight (each person will eat about two bags of maize a year). But if a farmer does not use actellic dust when he stores his maize, pests will typically ruin the whole stock in three months, after the farmer’s family has eaten only 4 bags. That farmer would then need to spend roughly 29,700 Kenya shillings ($370 USD) to feed his family for nine months, until the next harvest.

All of this money can be saved by spending 1,300 Kenya shillings ($16 USD) on materials for maize storage. That is a savings of 28,400 Kenya shillings ($354 USD) a year! If a farmer harvested more maize harvest than necessary to feed his family, he can store his maize until market prices are higher. For instance, in March, the market price for maize is double the price at harvest.

One Acre Fund is dedicated to spreading best practices at all stages of the growing season. Educating our farmers about proper storage practices increases One Acre Fund’s impact on its clients, but it also ensures that the hard work and financial investment our farmers have made is protected.

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.

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.