Airina Cossa

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Airina Cossa by Hluvuku-Adsema in Mozambique. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 16 - 22 months, Hluvuku-Adsema will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Airina is doing well. The MTn 16,000 was very helpful to buy seeds and increase production. Airina also benefited from the fact that she was able to diversify the vegetables planted and help the land be more fertile.

Airina plants cabbage lettuce, cucumber and beans during wintertime and corn during hot weather. Both cabbage and corn takes around 4 months to be ready to harvest, while beans take 45 days and cucumber only 30 days. Cabbage is Airina’s most lucrative vegetable, as it is easy to plant and sales are guaranteed. Each kilo of cabbage is sold for MTn 7.0 (around US$0.3) and with one single harvest Airina can make up to MTn 4,000. The largest cost of her business is the water (MTn 200 per month) and transportation, as Airina goes to the capital city Maputo to buy raw material and sell her vegetables. Airina counts with the help of temporary employees when the work is too much (during harvest, for example).

Although Airina lives in Mafuiane since 1977, she only started working at her machamba (small farm) in 1993, when the government divided the land and gave 80x80 meters fields to the local population. It was soon after the civil war was over in 1992. Airina lives with her husband that helps with the farm and 6 children, 2 of which are already grown and work. On top of the machamba, Airina and her husband occasionally raise cattle, when there is money enough.

Airina stated that is quite hard to meet the loan’s monthly installments, but she thinks the money helped significantly. In the future Airina plans on asking for a new loan to buy a car and help her business develop.