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“ Without SG 2000 intervention, we would have been battling with abject poverty”
The Story of the Kafin Gana Farmers’ Cooperative
The Kafin Gana Farmers’ Cooperative, in Jigawa, northwestern Nigeria, began life as a rotating savings and credit association (ROSCA) in January, 2000. At that time, the cooperative had 10 members, but by 2005 this had increased to 25, including 15 men and 10 women. In its early years the group struggled to invest effectively in profitable enterprises, explains Alhaji Abdu Gana, the group’s chairman. “For over 15 years, there was no improvement...
“They come from great distances to our shop” - The ‘Alen Tesfa’ women’s agro-processing cooperative
Tige Gelaw is from the Awabel woreda of the Amhara region in Ethiopia, bordered on the south by the famous Abay River, known as the Blue Nile. Tige is a member of Alen Tesfa, which translates to We have Hope, a women’s agro-processing cooperative group set up by SAA in 2010.
“SG 2000 came to our kebele” Tige recalls. “The first training we received was in home economics. [They] then provided us with peppers, chickpeas and Teff flour milling machines, which relieved us of the double burden of ...
Malian National Director of Agriculture ‘Very Satisfied’ with SAA Interventions
As part of the partnership between SG 2000 Mali and the National Directorate of Agriculture (DNA), national supervisory field visits are held to identify and document achievements in each of the four intervention areas where SG 2000 works: Kayes,Koulikoro, Sikasso, and Ségou. By recording these successes, they can be included in national annual reports and other databases, highlighting the successes of SG 2000 interventions, technologies,and innovations, and generating further adoption and buy-i...
“ Why don’t you join Sasakawa?” The Story of the Nyarakot Group
The Nyarakot Farmer Field School 1 is situated in Asinge C of the Nyarakot parish, in Tororo District, Uganda. It consists of 30 members, 18 of whom are women, and its activities include rice, groundnut and maize production. Formed in 2012 and fully registered, it received an initial investment of 10,000,000 Ugandan shillings (USh) from SG 2000 Uganda under the Farmer Based Organizations (FBOs) project. They were able to pay back the loan within a year, and the profits from their farming busines...
Supporting farmers to produce quality seed
Dr Fousseyni Cissé is a veteran scientist and rice breeder at the Malian Institute of Rural Economy (IER).
SAA works in collaboration with IER to produce quality seed for farmers. At the demonstration sites for seed production in the Sikasso region, SG 2000 Mali supports an IER-led project to promote two quality seed varieties.
The IER Lowland Rice Unit, based in the Sikasso Cercle at Lokorola village, is among the different agricultural research stations (Lowland and Upland) for different...
Women at the Forefront of Model Cooperative
Fatouma Burka is treasurer of the Borata Arjo Grain Marketing Primary Cooperative Society in the Bubata Arjo kebele of the Oromia region, Ethiopia. The group was established in 2010 with 27 members, all but one of whom were women, and the following year were registered and certified by the cooperatives promotion office. Current membership has now surpassed one hundred members, ten of them men. They are now a member of the Uta Wayu Cooperative Union – one of the most successful unions in Ethiopia...
Lop Ape: A farmers’ group for the love of one another
Christiana Jeron Buba is from the Pokwangli II town, situated in the Tungo District of the Kaltungo Local Government Area of Gombe State, Nigeria. She is an active member of the Lop Ape farmers’cooperative group. ‘Lop Ape’, in the local parlance of Hausa, means“a farmers’ group for the love of one another”. The group has a membership of 20 people, 15 of whom are women. They mainly cultivate maize, as well as cowpea and rice.
Christiana said that, thanks to Sasakawa Global 2000 Nigeria’s(SG 20...
WOMEN’S AGRO-PROCESSING ENTERPRISES: A source of income for rural women in Nigeria
Since 2012, the Postharvest Handling and Agro-processing programme (PHAP) of Sasakawa Global 2000 (SG 2000) in Nigeria has been promoting improved agro-processing technologies and techniques in rice, maize and soya production, with the aim of empowering women – particularly those in rural areas.
Through SG 2000 interventions, several agri-business enterprises
were established, and women’s agro-processing cooperatives currently operate in Adamawa, Kano, Gombe, and Jigawa States. Several techn...
“Those who see us want to be our partners”
The Yiriwa Djè Union of Tingoni, located in the Baraoueli Cerclearea of the Ségou Region, Mali, is made up of 17 cooperatives with a membership of 1,068 people, including 370 women and 698 men. Its holistic approach is based on the crop value chain, which runs from production to the demonstration of new technologies, to marketing through group sales and favourable market research.
The creation of the Union was the result of the support offered by SG 2000 Mali through its Village Development C...
Unity and Hard Work Does Pay Off: The Andinet Primary Cooperative
The Andinet Primary Cooperative can be found in the Debre Libanos woreda of the Dire Jibo kebele, North Shewa zone, in the Oromia region of Ethiopia.It was first established in 1977, although it wasn’t until 2004 that a new organisational structure brought renewed vigour and focus to the group. What started as a modest collective of 51 people now has a membership of 854, including 650 men and 204 women, and a working capital of 750,000ETB, under the guidance of the Sasakawa Africa Association.
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Success stories
Voices from the Field Special Edition 2022
This is a special edition of the "Voices from the Field" articles.
