Nassoun is a farmer living in the Kadiolo region of southern Mali. Before joining myAgro, she was one of the many female farmers who did not use fertilizer on her peanut field. It was simply too hard for her to scrape together the large lump sum necessary to buy fertilizer from a traditional inputs supplier. That’s why, when a myAgro representative came to talk to her savings group, she was interested in the system of little by little payments.
However, farmers in Nassoun’s village have learned to be wary of new NGOs that come in making big promises. They’ve seen too many organizations come and go without delivering results. Some have even taken farmers’ money and run. In this case, myAgro’s model of hiring vendors from within the community paid off. Nassoun felt that she could have confidence in myAgro because, as she says, “The vendor is a man of the village. He’s well-known and respected, so we have a lot of trust in myAgro.”
Now, after having harvested, Nassoun is overjoyed. She got 3 sacs of peanuts total, which is a huge improvement from the 1 sac she got last year on the same amount of land (1/8 hectare).
“With the poor rainfall this year, I really didn’t believe I could have this much. But thanks to the quality inputs, I saw it push through,” she says.
Nassoun laughs, saying that now she always has visitors who come to see her 3 sacs and say “what methods are you using!?”
“Now all the women in my group want to enroll,” she says with a smile.
