Maria is a smallholder farmer
Maria is a forty-two-year-old smallholder farmer in Tanzania. Maria has three children, aged sixteen, twelve and eight. She takes care of the children mostly by herself, with the help of some of the elderly villagers. Maria has seen the advantages of having a smartphone for daily use, and is saving up to buy a new one. At this time, she uses a phone that only has calling and SMS features. Maria is illiterate, so she only uses the calling feature of her phone, however occasionally she texts a smiley to her oldest son, who has his own smartphone. Maria struggles to provide her household with nutritious vegetables, because there are not many varieties sold on the local market for affordable prices. She tried to grow her own vegetables in her backyard, but the yields are not sufficient and the crops are not resilient enough to withstand viruses, drought, flooding, and other local circumstances. Besides the backyard, which is used exclusively by Maria for her household necessities, Maria’s family has a shared plot of land of three hectares, which is almost three times as big as most of the neighboring plots. Maria buys her seeds at the local store of the so-called ‘aggregator’, who is located on a walking distance of 15 kilometers. Sometimes, she sends someone of her family to buy the seeds for her, using a shared motorbike of her teenage children/villagers. Maria has a saving group together with a group of local farmers, whereby each time someone needs to make an unforeseen payment, or an investment, the money will be loaned to this person.
Maria wants to make a living from the yields of the family plot, by selling the crops on the local market, together with three of her siblings. She does not want to take too many risks in buying new varieties, because she does not have any financial reserves and part of the village is dependent on her supply in the market. The plants in her gardens suffer from different pests and disease, and Maria wants to get seeds resistant to this condition. To increase her yield she is using a lot of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which has a negative effect on health and environment. Also, these additional items are too expensive for Maria. Maria wants to try out the improved seeds that are provided by the local aggregator and pay back the much higher price of these seeds only after she has harvested and sold the crops of such seeds.
So that she can upgrade both her personal life and her farming business, by using her additional seasonal net proceeds partly for her own household, partly for saving up for bad times, and partly for investing in her business (buying better farm supplies), and creating new markets. The informal saving group can be upgraded to a Farmers Fund, whereby more people will have a chance to take out a loan and try out new seeds for themselves and the village will flourish as a whole.
Maria wants to make a living from the yields of the family plot, by selling the crops on the local market, together with three of her siblings. She does not want to take too many risks in buying new varieties, because she does not have any financial reserves and part of the village is dependent on her supply in the market. The plants in her gardens suffer from different pests and disease, and Maria wants to get seeds resistant to this condition. To increase her yield she is using a lot of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which has a negative effect on health and environment. Also, these additional items are too expensive for Maria. Maria wants to try out the improved seeds that are provided by the local aggregator and pay back the much higher price of these seeds only after she has harvested and sold the crops of such seeds.
So that she can upgrade both her personal life and her farming business, by using her additional seasonal net proceeds partly for her own household, partly for saving up for bad times, and partly for investing in her business (buying better farm supplies), and creating new markets. The informal saving group can be upgraded to a Farmers Fund, whereby more people will have a chance to take out a loan and try out new seeds for themselves and the village will flourish as a whole.
