Farmer to Farmer East Africa s8

Farmer to Farmer East Africa

Volunteer Assignment Scope of Work

NOTE: THIS SCOPE OF WORK IS AWAITING FINAL EDITS

Summary Information Assignment Code UG104 Country: Uganda Country Project: Maize Country Project Host organization: Twezimbe Area Cooperative Enterprise Assignment Title Farm Record Keeping and basic financial Management Preferred assignment dates: January- February,2016 Objective: Enable farmers to assess the profitability of their farm business operations and improve in their “farming as a business” Desirable Volunteer Formal qualifications in agribusiness, farm business Knowledge and Skills: management and production economics are desirable.

A. Background

Twezimbe Area Cooperative Enterprise Limited started in 2008 as a small producer organisation known as Kyeyitabya PO with support from USAID LEAD project. In 2010 the members decided to join with other POs to form an umbrella organisation that is presently referred to as Twezimbe Area Cooperative Enterprise. The company is registered with the registrar of companies and a member organisation under the Uganda Cooperative Alliance (UCA) and registered in the Ministry of Trade Industry and Cooperatives. Since then, Twezimbe ACE membership has steadily grown to a membership of 3,679 farmers with 2039 male and 1640 female spread across 18 Rural Producer Organisations within Kyankwanzi District. The ACE is a farmer owned and controlled organisation with a democratically elected board of directors to govern on behalf of the members.

The organization has a vision of becoming a leading farmer owned co-operative institution providing access to better markets and market alternatives for farmers in rural farming communities. And a mission of bringing farmers together to carry out collective marketing and value addition through bulking of high quality produce, with a purpose of gaining access to better markets, food security and improved income. The vision and mission are achieved through training of farmers in modern agronomic practices, post-harvest handling, access to quality agro-inputs, collective bulking, value addition and marketing. Twezimbe ACE is currently promoting its services across three enterprises; Maize, beans and coffee.

1 As part of its strategic objectives, Twezimbe ACE looking into expanding its business model to the RPOs and is desirous to encourage the RPOs with their membership to operate as sustainable business entities with the ultimate goal of bulking and selling through the cooperative. This will guarantee a sustained supply of produce of required quality and quantity to the ACE which will in turn be able to satisfy the needs of its clientele. However, the ACE is still faced challenges of a poor record keeping culture at the farmer and RPO levels. Farming is still taken as a vocation rather than as an income generating activity. As such farm planning and proper financial management are also unheard at these levels. The ACE has made relatively significant strides in the area of financial management and record keeping (maintaining up to date information) as far as the ACE is concerned. The same energy and enthusiasm needs to be introduced at the RPO and Farmer levels if the goal of creating self-sustaining RPOs is to be achieved.

This volunteer technical assistance will focus on training the farmers and RPO leaders in farm record keeping, farm planning and basic skills of financial management as components of ‘farming as a business’. The trainings will target the farmers and RPO leadership, developing simple templates/tools that can be used to track information and understand RPO business operations.

B. Issue Description

Agriculture remains the backbone of Uganda’s economy. In 2012/13, the sector accounted for 25.3 percent of the country’s GDP from 24.7 percent in 2010/11. It employs about 72 percent of the total labour force (formal and informal), 77 percent of whom are women, and 63 per cent are youth, mostly residing in the rural areas. Over the NDPI (National Development Plan 1) period, the sector registered sluggish growth from 1.0 percent in 2010/11, to 1.33 percent during 2013/14. Farming is still dominated by smallholder farmers engaged in food and cash crops, horticulture, ﬁshing and livestock farming. The sector’s strength is leveraged through, among others, the National Agricultural Policy 2013 which sets a solid framework to guide investment and delivery of agricultural services. In order to achieve the middle income status by 2040 as envisioned by NDP II, the country still needs to improve the agricultural extension system- support the farmers in the transition process from subsistence to commercial farming, realise increase in production and productivity. This ultimately means that farmers will start to view and perceive farming as a business rather than any other vocation or part of rural life style.

Improving on-farm income earnings from agriculture enterprises is considered a key strategy of addressing poverty and transitioning of Uganda’s agriculture from subsistence to commercial farming. Majority of rural farmers lack the appropriate skills to operate their farms as profitable enterprises. The average Ugandan rural farmer has historically carried out farming primarily to meet household food requirements, selling the excess, and often at a loss because production factors are not factored into the pricing couple with poor negotiation skills, this is primarily because farmers do not keep records. Therefore, to improve the livelihoods of rural farmers, it is

2 critical for them to start viewing farming as a business. It is necessary that the RPOs will operate as smaller business units that feed back into the larger ACE operations- these will coordinate activities among the POs- from production keeping a record of productive land, yield per acre, monitor progress in terms of crop harvests, sales/price trends etc.

This volunteer assignment will focus on training of RPO leaders in developing farm record keeping templates at RPO level to manage the bulking activities and track production volumes from the different producer organisations (POs). The ACE currently lacks information on total acreage under production and the yield per acre of either maize, beans or coffee. Through the templates developed, RPOs will be able to collect this data and report back to the ACE and later provide information regarding sales/revenues and expenses to various POs. At the RPO level, the volunteer will train the leaders in basic financial management, basic accounting rules, preparing income statements, balance sheets and cash inflow/out flow statements. The training will also be rolled out to the farmers to train on the importance of farm records, types of farm records to keep, profit and loss calculations, cost benefit analysis and practice on simple record keeping templates.

C. Specific Objectives of the Assignment

Twezimbe ACE has requested for a F2F volunteer to assist the RPOs in streamlining the record keeping system, and train the RPO leadership on basic financial management. This assistance will also benefit grass root farmers as an eye opener into the importance of keeping records, types of records to keep, calculating the profit/loss from the crop enterprises and make informed decisions on the kind of enterprises to invest in based on profitability analysis. This is in line with the SDGs that are looking at ending poverty in all its forms and having resilient communities and which is in tandem with Uganda’s NDPII aimed at the achieving middle income status by 2040 for sustainable wealth creation, employment and inclusive and sustained economic growth.

The specific topics for the volunteer to provide technical support in are:

1. Types of farm records (Production records, profit and loss, cash inflows and out flows, labour records) and the importance of keeping farm records 2. Calculation of Cash inflow and outflow records/sales records 3. Profit and Loss records 4. Cost Benefit Analysis –for Gross profit analysis and enterprise selection 5. Farm planning- developing and use of a farm calendar to maximise resource allocation 6. Basics of farm financial management (Financial Definitions, basic accounting rules and records, preparing financial statements)

The trainings will be conducted at two levels: 1. At the grass root level, working with the farmers one topics (1- 5), 2. At RPO level covering topics 1- 6 above. The RPO leaders will act as

3 trainers supporting and conducting follow up trainings with the farmers trained and reaching new groups. This will be accomplished with support from the management team of the ACE.

D. Anticipated Results from the Assignment

With the volunteer’s technical assistance, Twezimbe ACE farmers should be in position to make production decisions based on cost benefit analyses and use records to make informed production, pricing and marketing decisions. Good management decisions will help reduce farmers’ production costs and risks, and improve efficiency of farm production and marketing. The training will set precedence into staring record keeping at RPO level- this information will be very important for ACE as far as production quantities, quality, active member participation and better negotiating power with prospective buyers. The RPOs will be in a better position to manage the records and finances from produce sales and other revenues and thus provide proper accountability to their members.

It is further anticipated that once farmers begin keeping records and approaching farming from a business perspective, their incomes will increase and overall their livelihoods will be improved. In addition to the training, the volunteer will be required to develop a training guide on ‘Records Keeping’ and basic financial management, which will be used for future reference and training.

The anticipated deliverables include:

 At least 200 members from the Rural Producer Organizations trained on farm records keeping  Training manuals/guidelines on farm record keeping developed  Debriefing with USAID and in country group presentations after assignment  Volunteer feedback  Field trip report and expense report

E. Schedule of Volunteer Activities in Uganda

Day Activity Day 1 Arrival at Uganda Entebbe Airport, picked by Airport shuttle to Kampala and check in at Hotel. Day 2 At 9.00 am, the volunteer is greeted at the hotel by CRS staff and thereafter taken to CRS office for introductions and briefings including host brief, logistics and expectations and anticipated outcomes. Any necessary hand-outs will be prepared at CRS offices. Travel to Kiboga district to commence the assignment Day 3 In the morning CRS introduces the volunteer to the Twezimbe ACE management team, board and the District authorities. Together with CRS and the management, the volunteer will review and finalise the work-plan. The action plan should include group presentations to be done after the assignment. In the afternoon, visit some of the RPOs for an orientation into their activities

4 Days 4-5 Training representatives from each RPO as ToTs on farm business record keeping and make appropriate recommendations (25 beneficiaries) Day 6-7 Training 1st RPO members on farm business record keeping and make appropriate recommendations (25 beneficiaries) Days 8-9 Training 2nd RPO members on farm business record keeping and make appropriate recommendations (25 beneficiaries) Days 10-11 Training 3rd RPO members on farm business record keeping and make appropriate recommendations (25 beneficiaries) Days 12-13 Finalize training 4th RPO members on farm business record keeping and make appropriate recommendations (25 beneficiaries) Days 14-15 Training 4th RPO members on farm business record keeping and make appropriate recommendations (25 beneficiaries) Days 16-17 Training 5th RPO members on farm business record keeping and make appropriate recommendations (25 beneficiaries) Days 18-19 Training 6th RPO members on farm business record keeping and make appropriate recommendations (25 beneficiaries) Day 20 - 21 Training RPO representatives non basic financial management and accounting for RPO financial and non-financial records. These sessions will empower RPO leaders with skills that can improve their work as they consolidate different producer organisations. Days 22 Wrap up meetings, whilst emphasizing key concepts of the assignment. Participants evaluate the training and together with the volunteer discuss final report recommendations. Travel back to Kampala Day 22 Debriefing at CRS office with USAID Mission and CRS staff. Volunteer will finalize his/her reporting at CRS office and fill out all necessary M&E forms as well finalize advances and expenditures with finance. In the evening depart for the US TBD Outreach event when back in the US could include: presentation with a local group/organization, press release, media event and/or speaking tour.

F. Desired Volunteer Skills and Qualifications

 Formal qualifications in agribusiness, farm business management and production economics are desirable  Good knowledge on smallholder subsistence and semi-commercial agriculture in developing tropical countries  Experience with set up and management of agro processing facility, along with strategic planning for such a facility  Experience in working with smallholder grain farmers and farmers’ organisations.  Good writing and analytical skills, interpersonal communication and presentation skills (adult education skills).

G. Accommodation and Other In-Country Logistics

5 In Kampala, the volunteer will stay at Fairway Hotel & Spa (www.fairwayhotel.co.ug, telephone: + 256 414 259 571) and while in Kiboga s/he will be accommodated at Gracious motel with basic amenities of running water and electricity. The volunteer will be provided with an internet modem while out in the field.

CRS will pay for hotel accommodation, and provide the volunteer with per diems to cater for meals and other incidentals. The volunteer will get an advance that will have to be cleared before departing from Uganda. For more information, please refer to the country information that will be provided.

Host contribution: Twezimbe ACE has committed to conduct translation and to mobilize the members and RPO leaders for the training sessions. The ACE will allocate one person from the management team to work closely with the volunteer throughout the entire assignment and he/she will ensure that key members /leaders are trained and there after transfer the knowledge and skills to the wider community.

H. Recommended Assignment Preparation

 The volunteer should prepare materials for hand-outs, which can be printed at CRS office in Kampala before commencement of the assignment. Flip charts, markers, masking tapes can be obtained at CRS offices in case the volunteer wishes to make some illustrations. Depending on the training venue the volunteer may use a laptop and projector for power point presentations. However if the training venue is in the community, it will be difficult to use PowerPoint. In this case the volunteer will be expected to prepare training materials and have hand-outs printed at CRS offices for distribution to the participants.  CRS strongly recommends that the volunteer becomes familiar with the maize country project description prior to arrival in the country as well as country information that will be provided.  Knowledge on Records keeping, in particular, and FaaB and agribusiness in rural settings of developing countries, in general, is also advised.

I. Key Contacts

CRS Baltimore CRS EA Regional Office Maria Figueroa Nyambura Theuri Volunteer Recruiter Deputy Project Manager Director EA Farmer to Farmer EA Farmer to Farmer Program Program 228 W. Lexington P.O. Box 49675 – Street 00100 Baltimore, MD 21201 Nairobi, Kenya 410-951-7366 St. Augustine Court Email: Karuna Close Road

6 [email protected] Email: g nyambura.theuri@crs. org

CRS Uganda George Ntibarikure Elizabeth Pfifer Project Director, Country Farmer to Farmer Representative Program CRS Uganda Uganda Office Tel: +256 031 Office Tel: +256 031 226 5658 226 5658 Mobile cell phone Mobile cell phone +256 772 724 796 +256 772 472 103 Email: Email: [email protected] george.ntibarikure@cr rg s.org