USAID/Guinea: Micro-credit Helps Promote Food Security in Guinea

MAY 27, 2003

Micro-credit Helps Promote Food Security in Guinea

Micro-credit, when combined with learning new agricultural techniques, basic business management, literacy and numeracy skills, is being used effectively by USAID to promote food security in some of the poorest areas of Guinea.

How, you may ask, is micro-credit linked to improving food security?

In addition to conveying new agricultural and animal traction techniques, as well as basic business management and literacy skills, USAID-sponsored Adventist Relief and Development Agency (ADRA), a faith-based non-governmental organization (NGO), along with NGOs Africare and OICI, have been using micro-credit as an effective tool to help promote food security in middle and Upper Guinea. In the Siguiri area, for example, ADRA has given out micro-loans to women's and men's agricultural co-ops just prior to the planting season to enable them to buy inputs such as improved seeds and tools, which they would not be able to afford otherwise. Regular seeds cost about $1.00/kilo, while improved varieties are much more expensive--$3.00/kilo or more.

USAID beneficaries learn how to use animals effectively to plow and weed their fields. Photo courtesy of the ADRA office in Siguiri

Improved animal traction techniques are taught to USAID beneficiaries in the Siguiri area, and micro-credit loans are often used to rent bulls to plow fields.

Juvénal Mukezangango, micro-credit coordinator for ADRA in Siguiri, says, "People can't afford to buy the improved seeds on their own. If they don't have financial aid and the agricultural season has started, they'll take whatever seeds they can get and plant them. That causes problems with regard to the availability of food because they will not produce food in sufficient quantity. They need a financial boost in the period just prior to the planting season to get inputs that will make for a better harvest." The use of micro-credit in this way has promoted the use of improved seeds in sufficient quantities, allowing for a much higher yields, and, in the end, better food security in the region.

ADRA is currently providing technical assistance and credit to approximately 3,875 farmer-households in the Siguiri area to buy improved seeds, simple tools and oxen and plough. Additionally, about 3,375 women are being provided with training and credit to undertake gardening as well as petty trading activities with the view to enhancing their incomes and food access.

Prior to receiving a loan, ADRA also gives beneficiaries basic training in money management, along with the literacy and numeracy skills required to keep the books, all of which convey valuable life skills that are paying off economically for small farmers.

woman in a USAID-sponsored literacy class

Adult literacy classes help beneficiaries learn how to read and record important information, and basic math skills help to balance the books.

Literacy classes are in fact required of ADRA's beneficiaries as part of the basic skills they need to manage their affairs. Illiteracy rates are extremely high in the Siguiri area -- estimated to be around 91%--so literacy courses are considered indispensable for improving people's standards of living. In 2002, all 1,977 of ADRA's beneficiairies took functional literacy classes during 45 days of training, out of whom 1,908 have acquired basic literacy skills. Learning to read and write means added organizational and economic power for agricultural groups, contributing to better agricultural production through better democratic organization and more effective marketing and sales practices, improving food security. Basic literacy skills also enable micro-credit clients to better manage their loans (See more about how literacy contributes to food security).

Micaël Sanchez, ADRA Siguiri Project Manager, says that availability and access to food are the biggest problems in the region. Says Sanchez, "Baseline studies have shown that there are four months in which people in this area are undernourished -- in other words, there are four months in which local granaries are completely empty. Food is always available during the year for big producers, but not for poor farmers. We are trying to ensure that this no longer happens, and trying to ensure that there's enough food here in this prefecture to feed everybody." To ensure success, ADRA works hand in hand with local NGOs as well governmental organizations in the health and agriculture sectors such as the SNPRV* -- the Guinean National Agricultural Extension Service -- to harmonize work methods and schedules concerning the training and supervision of local staff, technical itineraries, and the stocking and distribution of improved seeds.

Although is it premature to measure the impact of the project on the length of the "food shortage period," a 2002 yield survey on crop productivity for rice and corn, two diet staples for Siguiri residents, indicates significant increases. Productivity among ADRA clients increased from 1.32 t/ha to 2.05T/ha for rice (a 55% increase), and from 1.56 t/ha to 2.55t/ha for corn (a 76% increase).

Improved granaries significantly reduce grain loss, which is important to promoting food security, particularly during the difficult rainy season.

Higher yields produced from the use of improved seeds and better agricultural techniques are also combined with the use of improved granaries, which reduce grain loss due to rodents, insects and rotting. In addition, when agricultural co-ops can store their own grains with a minimum loss, they can avoid selling their harvest to businesspeople in the area, who then sell those same grains back to small farmers at three or more times the cost. When the grains are stored among members of an agricultural co-op and then resold with a marginal benefit, farmers can afford to buy back the grains, and the profits go toward improving the co-op"s agricultural project.

Microfinance loans are also used to rent the use of bulls to plow fields. ADRA also works with a local NGO, the Guinean Network for Animal Traction, to teach two members of each agricultural co-op improved techniques for using livestock to plow fields, and for seedling and weeding operations. The techniques taught are more efficient and versatile, and require only one person to handle a team of bulls instead of three or four. More than 500 animals have gone through the training with 500 agricultural co-op members who are now trained in these new techniques.

Although the return rate for micro-loans is right around 99%, sustainability is not the primary issue -- food security is. Says Sanchez, "Microcredit funds are always used in the Siguiri area with the goal of promoting food security. The first thing we want to make sustainable is productive agriculture. This is a necessary rite of passage for the development of agriculture in any country."

Microcredit is also being used in Guinea to promote non-agricultural income-generating activities targeting women such as the transformation of agricultural products, tailoring, soap-making, and, especially, small commerce. When combined with traditional farming activities, the promotion of small commerce through micro-credit is helping smallholder farmers in rural areas of Guinea raise the standard of living for themselves and their families.

**SNPRV = Service Nationale de Promotion Rurale et Vulgarization Agricole or the Guinean National Agricultural Extension Service.

Story and photos by Laura Lartigue