If God Agree Group

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to the If God Agree group, consisting of Fatmata Sawaneh, Kulako Faroh, Mamusu Kamara, Finah Mansaray, Mohamed Sawaneh by CCF - Salone Microfinance Trust in Sierra Leone. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 7 months, CCF - Salone Microfinance Trust will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

We recently visited Mohamed Sawaneh, member of the If God Agree Group, at his farm in the Senekedugu village of Kabala in the Koinadugu district of Sierra Leone. His sister, Fatmata Sawaneh, is the group leader for If God Agree. Unfortunately, she was working on the farm at the time of our visit. Her plot of farmland is several miles away from any access roads. In her place, we interviewed Mohamed for a progress update on his agricultural loan from SMT.

Mohamed and his fellow group members are one of SMT’s first agricultural loan product clients. SMT’s agricultural loan product is distributed to farmers who are hoping to increase their farm production for the sake of improving their livelihoods and the livelihoods of the workers they employ in the field. If you recall from their original group loan posting, their goal was to purchase farm supplies, develop their agribusiness, buy seeds and hire laborers.

First, regarding the laborers needed to till the land. Mohamed hired 115 laborers over the course of the full harvest season. He pays them 3,000 Leones/day ($1/day), prepares food for them and supplies them with drinks. The $1/day salary appears to be the norm in the Senekedugu village. As you get closer to central Kabala, you’ll notice the labor costs rising.

Mohamed is expecting to sell 15 bags of harvested rice at the end of the harvesting season. 15 bags is the equivalent of about 20 bushels. The current price for a bushel of rice on the market is 40,000 Leones or about $12 USD.

Related to his vegetable farming efforts, Mohamed grew cabbage and carrots. The cabbage reaped great benefits for Mohamed. His cabbage sales for this season were about 4,700,000 Leones or $1567 USD. He noted how one week he got 90,000 Leones for a bag of cabbage and three weeks later he got only 50,000 Leones. He wanted to underscore the great price fluctuation that occurs in a short period of time. On one day, the pricing structure helps the farmers. On the next day, it can hurt them.

The unusual shortage of rain during the rain season hurt Mohamed’s carrot production. His carrot crop failed. Mohamed admits he didn’t plant the carrots early enough. He realized no yield from his carrot seeds. Next year, Mohamed has every intention of planting the carrots earlier to avoid the same problem from occurring again. He was simply caught off guard by the lack of rain during the rain season.

The final message Mohamed would like to share with you, his Kiva lenders, is that without this loan he would not have been able to do any work on the farm. Today, he is able to work and live happily with his family. He wished to thank you and asked for your continued support in the future.

This new picture of Mohamed was taken in front of his carrot plot. I hope you enjoyed your journal update.

To view SMT loans currently being funded on Kiva, please visit:

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=57&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New+to+Old

To view all SMT loans currently being paid back, please visit:

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=57&status=All&sortBy=New+to+Old

Regards,

Adam Grenier

Kiva Fellow, Fall 2008

Sierra Leone