Here in Kenya, our field directors are working on a short training for farmers about the benefits of planting more maize with One Acre Fund. When farmers first enroll with One Acre Fund, they take a loan for seed and fertilizer for 1/2 acre of maize. In their next maize planting season, they will often take another loan for 1/2 acre of inputs, even if they have more land that could be planted. Anecdotally, farmers told us that they were so pleased with their harvest from ½ acre–why would they need to plant more? But most of them do plant more on the rest of their field (usually an additional 1 acre), but they often do not use fertilizer, and might use low-quality seed. This means their profit margin and harvest are a lot lower than what it could be. We wanted to create a training that would encourage farmers to take out a larger loan, while explaining the benefits of doing so in a convincing way.
Our new training will have several components. First, we’re putting together a simple, straightforward cost-benefit analysis that shows the benefits of spending a bit more on inputs (through a One Acre Fund loan). One reason farmers might hesitate to take on a larger loan is time. The One Acre Fund planting method is more time consuming that the local method, and time spent planting means that farmers can’t earn money working on a richer farmer’s land. For farmers with intermittent and unreliable incomes, it’s hard to give up money today for the potential of more money at harvest. Our field officers will discuss this issue with groups one-on-one.
The more interesting part of the training, however, will be the story of two farmers. Hungry Humphrey planted ½ acre and barely grew enough food to feed his family. He did not have any additional income to invest in his goat-rearing business, or to pay for health care for his family.
Happy Henrietta planted 1 acre of maize and 1/4 acre of beans with One Acre Fund and saved more than enough food for her family. She will sell some extra food to invest in a brick-making business. She is also saving money to invest in a dairy cow after next season’s harvest. By planning ahead, Happy Henrietta’s family was able to skip the hunger season for the first time in a long while. Her four children are enrolled in school and Henrietta was able to pay school fees comfortably.
We hope that this story will encourage farmers to make the leap and take on a loan for planting more maize next season. Growing more maize will help our farmers make investments in income-generating businesses. From One Acre Fund’s perspective, helping farmers increase their acreage under cultivation with high-quality inputs will help us reach sustainability faster. By increasing average transaction size, we increase the total loan portfolio of each field officer. Because our office cost remains constant, our overall level of sustainability goes up.