Agricultural Empowerment for Rural Farmers

Mr Kavuma Charles lost his leg in motor accident in 2006, while he had a family of 7 to taken care of, he was quite limited due the disability caused, in 2015 Cosma organized farmers in Luuma village under Suubilyo farmers association ( SULFA) to which Mr Kavuma got an opportunity to join and eventually became an executive, through group savings, Mr Kavuma got an opportunity to borrow and invest in a coffee farm but also accessed maize seeds to plant over two acres. Subsequently Mr Kavuma was able to generate extra income to take back his children to school. Amidst COVID-19 crisis, Mr Kavuma had almost lost hope in SULFA due to limited savings and no lending capital. Out of your donation to the Re-capitalizing 2000 rural farmers in Uganda (47086) , SULFA borrowed up to $2000 which rejuvenated their lending capital to its member farmers like Mr Kavuma. SULFA is among five village cooperatives which benefited from the Cosma revolving fund which has impacted over 358 members.

With the same fund we were also able to distribute up to 200 kg of improved maize seed costing $285 planted on 20 acres of land with an expected crop yield over 20 metric tones valued at $4000

With the same funds, 55 youths who were engaged in skills training in making hand bags, shoes and school books, and ready to engage in productive employment

In the next months our target is to;

• Establish a digital management information system to track customer transaction; this will go a long way in improving the monitoring, reporting and recovery processes while reducing on administration costs.
• We are still operating below capacity in terms of farmer services; we need to increase investment in the community fund to increase access to revolving cash loans and farm inputs
• Over 55 youths have been trained making handmade crafts, there is need to create startup grant to enable them start producing for the market and eventually gain income to save under village cooperatives

We are forever indebted to our individual, small to large donors who heard our GlobalGiving fundraiser call last June and offered your trust in our model to cause all the above impact in the community.

We look forward to more fruitful engagement soon

Yours in service

Cosma Team

Uganda and USA

Links:

• Re-capitalizing 2000 rural farmers in Uganda (47086)