By Lake Zone Watch Writer
The Board of the Mara Farmers’ Cooperative Union (WAMACU Ltd) has every reason to boast of its achievements in the past two years since it came into power to lead the cooperative movement.
Previously, WAMACU Ltd seemed to be in slumber and heading for collapse as farmers complained of incurring losses due to poor management of business transactions.
However, when the WAMACU Ltd new Board came into power in 2020/2021, there has been significant improvement of day-to-day services for the welfare of farmers in Mara region and the District Councils of Buchosa and Ukerewe in Mwanza region in the Eastern Lake Zone.
There has been remarkable improvement of services within WAMACU Ltd to reflect its vision of becoming a strong and sustainable cooperative society for the socio-economic benefits of its members – mostly farmers.
Under its chairman David Hechei, the WAMACU Ltd Board has shown enviable progress in supervision, coordination and in uniting the various primary cooperative societies (AMCOS) in business transactions such as collecting, storing, processing and finding markets for farmers’ produce.
Unlike in the past when coffee was bought on loans, today farmers rejoice for receiving cash on the spot upon selling their commodity for attractive prices.
“When this Board assumed responsibilities, WAMACU Ltd was just collecting and selling coffee in ways that left much to be desired as farmers could not understand what was taking place. Today, however, there is improvement of extension services as farmers are provided with farm inputs such as fertiliser, quality seeds and seedlings,” says Samwel Gisiboye, the WAMACU Ltd General Manager.
“Now the society extends its services to tobacco farmers in Serengeti and Rorya districts, instead of sticking to coffee farmers alone.”
What’s the secret of these achievements?
Gisiboye, who is also the secretary to the WAMACU Ltd Board, is quick to respond to this question. “The secret is competent management from the Board which came up with sustainable strategies to improve services to farmers.”
He singles out that provision of fertilizer to the farmers has been a major catalyst in promoting the society apart from the provision of high quality services to WAMACU Ltd members.
Other achievements within the society include being an agent of the Tanzania Fertiliser Regulatory Authority and the Tanzania Official Seed Certification Institute for supplying fertilizer and quality seeds to farmers.
“We’ve also increased the number of permanent workers from two to 40 apart from having more tha 60 labourers,” Gisiboye explains.
The workers are engaged in distributing fertilizer and seeds to farmers, construction and renovation of infrastructure of the coffee processing factory, whose raw coffee is collected by WMACU Ltd through AMCOS.
“This has led to our Arabica coffee being ranked the best in local and international competitions since the 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 seasons,” Gisiboye says, adding: “The taste of coffee cultivated in Tarime district won the Tanzania Fine Coffee Competition.”
Tarime coffee, Gisiboye says, leads in fetching good price in auctions compared to coffee grown in other parts of the country.
WAMACU Ltd has continued to train farmers on usage of fertilizer and the digital supervision of cooperative societies and ordering dry and raw coffee processing machines for the benefit of farmers.
Currently, Gisiboye says WAMACU Ltd brags of having its own offices compared to being forced to hire warehouses as the norm was in the past.
There is a long list of the achievements under the current WAMACU Ltd Board, which includes the restoration of all assets and properties which belonged to the defunct Mara Cooperative Union (MCU (1984) Ltd), investment in fuel stations at Nyangoto and Tarime, and being an agent of NMB Bank as part of implementing a directive of the Tanzania Cooperative Development Commission (TCDC).
“We thank the Sixth Phase Government of President Samia Suluhu Hassan for being a catalyst in the development of our society,” Gisibonye explains.
He also mentions the Ministry of Agriculture, TCDC, Tanzania Agriculture Development Bank, agriculture officers in the Lake Zone and district and regional leaders for being the pillar of WAMACU Ltd development.
WAMACU Ltd has crafted several strategies to improve its financial position and that of its members. Such strategies include building of coffee processing plants, registering new members (AMCOS), corporations, private institutions and large-scale farmers.
Other strategies are to mobilise farmers to register through agriculture officers in order to benefit from the government initiative of fertilizer subsidy and seeking a dependable foreign market for coffee to enable farmers get better prices for their produce.
“Already, we have a license of selling coffee abroad and have begun following how to export a customer’s consignment to Europe,” Gisiboye says.
“We urge the farmers to continue cooperating with us as far as the provision of fertilizer and quality seeds is concerned. It’s our hope that government will continue to support us.”
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