Mr Master Phineas, member of Kasipa Cooperative in Nkhotakota has been a farmer for more than 20 years. Throughout his lifetime as a farmer he as been realising average harvests and, in numerous seasons, actually making losses. In 2020, he was one of the members of Kasipa Cooperative to receive the ACE Marketing School training where he learnt about the Chithumba model and how it gives you access to certified soya seed, inoculant and an indepth Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) training on soya. He thus made his decision to take part in Chithumba and registered himself, his wife and his two children on the model through the FO thus accessing a total of 60kgs of certified soya seed and inoculant to be planted on 2 acres as per GAP instructions. Mr Phineas closely followed the land preparation GAP and pest and disease management trainings he received from the Rural Marketing Advisor (RMA). He wanted to make sure that his family could maximise on the Chithumba harvest and therefore ensured his farm stayed free from weed, pest and disease.
In addition, Mr Phineas was trained on Harvesting and Post-Harvest handling. This training helped him and other beneficiaries to minimise harvesting and post-harvest losses. In total the Phineas family was able to harvest 3,300kgs of soya from the 2 acres of land, equivalent to 66 bags, of which 300kgs were the repayment volume for Chithumba, leaving them with 3,000kgs of soya to sell. Mr Phineas kept observing the market prices sent by ACE on a weekly basis, and was able to sell his soya through the ACE platform at 550mwk/kg for a total of 1,650,000mwk. This money was used to support his dream of building a house In his words, he said “A Malango sitidzakuiwalani pa zomwe mwandichitila posintha moyo wanga kudzera ku Chithumba, onani lero ndamanga nyumba ya ku mtima kwanga” (Mr. Malango, you shall never be forgotten for changing my life through Chithumba, look today I have managed to build my dream house).

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