Many months before we put a single seed into the ground, our field staff are focused on “new enrollment.” They mobilize farmers in their villages, educate people about One Acre, and sign contracts for the next growing season. Next year we expect to serve 25,000 farmers, more than double the number we served this year. To handle the surge in demand for our loans, we’ve hired and trained many field officers to work with these new farmers.

I recently had the opportunity to meet Elizabeth Muchina Khaemba, one of our new field officers, at work in Bokoelie, her village. She met us bright and early, dressed in a crisp white blouse and carrying her field materials in a plastic bag. With a wide, energetic smile, she explained to me that she had just moved into a rented house in Bokoelie over the weekend so that she could be closer to the farmers she is working with. She wanted to be able to spend more time talking to her farmers and understanding the community.

Before we went out into the field, Elizabeth told me that some of the farmers in her area are fearful of One Acre Fund and concerned that we might not deliver the seed and fertilizer we promise. Elizabeth only has two farmers in her sublocation who have worked with One Acre before, so she has to spend a lot of time teaching farmers about One Acre and building relationships with them. Luckily, her warm manner and positive energy are helping her make friends across the area, and troubleshoot problems that she encounters along the way.

Elizabeth knows that enrolling new farmers is not an easy process. One leader of a community self-help group, who held an informational meeting on One Acre at her shop, turned around and told her group members after the meeting that One Acre Fund is a bad group that will steal their money. Elizabeth found out because she has taken the time to establish a personal connection with local farmers; two of them came to her, explained what had happened, and said they were still interested in taking out a loan from One Acre.

“Some people don’t want to let other people rise up,” she told me. She had done some investigation of the community leader, and now knows that she has many unpaid loans and would be a poor candidate for One Acre’s program.

Two weeks into the enrollment period, Elizabeth has signed contracts with twenty-seven farmers thus far, and is on track to hit her target of one-hundred and twenty farmers by the end of the year.

But more than that, Elizabeth is looking to enroll farmers that are committed to working hard and improving their lives – like all of One Acre’s field officers, she is trained to identify “quality farmers.” Although she is a new staff person, I am confident that she will do a fantastic job of kicking off One Acre Fund in a completely new village!