<aside> ❓ See 👥Customers Guide for more info on how to use this page

</aside>

Who are Tieme Ndo customers:

Info obtained from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yAWjdINuszKaKWRM7x_GwsHBnxzQdA4jeV0bLoGErVg/edit

• Retailer

  • Sells fertilizers and improved seeds to farmers/organizations
  • Some partners provide tractor services to provide ploughing services for farmers

• Individual Farmer

  • Rural households, with a big increase in women-headed households (because of migration of males to work in other fields and widowed women). Women contributes over 50% of the agriculture labor force in Africa
  • Age groups* for household heads (with decision making, allocation of resources, etc) *Data coming from the interviewed households in 'Microfinance and Rural Household Development' paper
    • 18-25 years - 5%
    • 25-35 years - 12.9%
    • 35-45 years - 24.5%
    • 45-55 years - 36.7%
  • Wants to buy fertilizers or seeds when needed, but usually does not have enough capital to pay for them in advance
  • Wants to increase his/her crop yield
  • Wants/needs microloans to finance his farming activities, which he then repays from selling the produce
  • Wants to feed his/her family and sell exceeding produce
  • Most likely does not have regular access to internet

• Organizations of farmers

  • Give farmers bargaining power in the market place, enable cost-effective delivery of extension services

  Customer interview form

  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc7p6IjBwTA_xI6Ht4QlE3PBhkncWrk91IDyH2qH-ys15A-Ew/viewform

Customers / Potential User Base

Research resources

Agriculture is the most important source of livelihood in Nandom (Ghana). The type of agriculture being practiced is mainly subsistence for the up-keep of families. The main source of farm labour is household family labour (i.e., husband, wife, children and dependants). However, agriculture has become an increasingly risky occupation mainly due to the low fertility of the soil, increasing population pressure, low levels of investment in agriculture, low returns and a high cases of deforestation.

Many of rural household heads (38.1 per cent) have had five to ten years of education, 30.2 per cent received more than ten years of schooling. While, 20 per cent indicated they have had less than five years of education, only 10.8 per cent did not go to school at all. Generally, the educational level of the rural entrepreneurs is low as a larger proportion of household heads have not had more than ten years of education. Low education is expected to have some negative implication on accessing and utilizing micro-credit (as found in a study by Whelan et al., 2004) as well as access to credit information.

Agricultural income (from the sale of crops like millet and livestock like cows) constitutes the largest share of household income. Quite a significant percentage (25.5 per cent) derives their income from non-farm sources, however. Therefore, households’ incomes come from multiple sources

Also, lack of adequate, reliable transport penalizes households engaged in cash crop farming, non-farm employment opportunities and access to social services.

We found that the share of informal credit (57.4 per cent) in total micro-credit is bigger than formal micro-credit (42.6 per cent). The non recourse to stringent credit conditions (like collateral security) explains why informal micro-credit is more popular. Informal creditors mainly rely on the trust of borrowers to pay back.

• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249820553_Microfinance_and_Rural_Household_DevelopmentA_Ghanaian_Perspective

Growing up, Moses has witnessed how his parents worked so hard on their farms but yields increasingly become lower every year. Because, like most farmers in Africa, his parents did not have the capital to pay upfront for improved seeds and fertilizers at the time they needed it most.

• http://tiemendo.com/our-team/

Meet farmer Valeria Dery (61), one of Tieme Ndo’s gallant farmers. She is a farmer and a weaver. Before she joined Tieme Ndo in 2017, she used to grow maize in her backyard farm. Barely a year after joining Tieme Ndo, she has expanded beyond her backyard farm to cultivating one acre of maize, rice and groundnuts. According to Mrs Dery, she does not have to worry anymore about mobilizing funds to pay upfront for seeds and fertilizers, unlike previous years. For not paying cash for fertilizers and seeds, Mrs Dery now uses her money to buy more weaving threads to expand her weaving business. The power of a small asset-based loan to a rural farmer is limitless.

• https://tiemendo.com/meet-our-farmers/
• https://www.africaw.com/the-african-farmer-problems-facing-agriculture

Tieme Ndo 2018 progress report