Enrollment and Tea-time

January 18, 2012

I started working with myAgro a three months ago when myAgro first launched.

Three months ago, we had no members. Now, we have over 200 enrolled farmers – and most of them are women!

Three months ago, no farmers had started paying. Now, over 95% of our farmers have started saving and pre-paying toward seed and fertilizer. Two have already finished!

It makes me so excited. I had to stop myself from attaching a couple Excel charts that show how quickly we’ve grown. However small part I’ve played, it’s been pretty fulfilling to be a part of an organization and team that is going to make a real difference in our farmers’ lives and villages.

I thought this time I’d talk a bit about how we’re telling farmers about our program, as well as their reception.

Mobilization

How does word get out about myAgro? Marketing is a key piece of what we’re working on. We are trying to convince rural farmers – subsistence famers, no less – that it is worth prepaying for inputs to next year’s harvest. Illiteracy appears to be fairly typical in village, as well.

So it helps to have a rock star field staff. I’ve been able to go along with our field staff as they visit farmer families individually to talk about our program and invite them to a more formal meeting. We approach a typical dwelling –

Salaam Alaikum!

The father of the household comes out, as the sons have been in the fields working when I’ve been visiting villages recently. The first thing he’ll do is make sure we have seating for everyone, so he’ll corral some benches and chairs from his neighbors and seemingly always insist I sit first.

Tea is also extremely common, as Malians enjoy drinking thickly-sweet, blackened-to-burnt hot tea all of the time. It’s pretty cool to watch them heat the water over small charcoal heating elements, then pour the water back and forth dozens of times to help steep the tea. Tea is then poured into shot-glass sized glasses and offered to everyone sitting. It’s drunk quickly, then handed back so the same glass can be refilled for the next person. A lengthy exchange of greetings comes next, where we say good morning, ask about each other’s health and family, among other things.

This is often followed by asking each other’s name then insulting them about that name. Typical insults like “you eat a lot of beans,” “you have the face of a donkey,” and “you’re my slave.” With very few family names (last names) in Mali, funny stereotypes and associations abound with each, and it’s an easy icebreaker for Malians. And yes, I have a Malian name, so I get thrown into the mix as a bean-eater. It’s called Joking Cousins and gets everyone warmed up before we begin discussions about myAgro.

My favorite interaction so far has been watching our field staff member named Coulibaly (a common family name here) insist that an old man he was talking to was also a Coulibaly. Surprisingly feisty, the elderly villager shot back insults while sitting on the ground eating watermelon, until it got to the point where he started petulantly throwing watermelon rinds over his head and shouting “I am NOT a Coulibaly!”, to which everyone laughed including the elder.

Things will settle down, and our field staff will explain the benefits of myAgro, typically through the help of some photos of good-looking harvests and happy farmers. After ten or fifteen minutes, the meeting concludes, and onto the next house.

So word is getting out about myAgro (n’gaSènè in Bambara). Some mobilization, some radio programs, some village meetings and the reception has been amazingly positive.

Last week, we got to see the president of the village co-operative, which organizes farmers, talk to the village about how important it is to support us in our first year of operations, and how great of an impact we’ll have. Our enrollment deadline is coming up in four weeks and we’re relying on positive farmers like the co-op President to convince others to join us.