Self-Reliance Is The Goal of Farmer Group 5 in Guédé Chantier, Senegal

In a conversation Harwood had with the Deputy
Mayor of Gud Chantier, Senegal, Amadou Sy, the

Deputy Mayor talked about a recent meeting he had
with the presidents of the various farmers groups. In
that meeting he learned that Farmer Group 5 had CFA
11.5 million (approximately US$ 24,000) in a savings
account while the other groups had nothing approaching that amount.
A couple of days later, Harwood had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Abu Samba Sow, the
President of Farmer Group 5. He explained that the
current farmer groups were established in 1993 when
the dike was constructed around the community, covering up some fields thus necessitating a reassignment of
fields to members of the community. The community
was divided into 2 sections with each deciding on their
own organizational pattern.
Section 1 established 5 groups and Group 5 elected
Sow as President. As he says, In my vision, I structured the organization of the group into three levels:
the General Assembly, the Executive Board, and the
Advisory Board. The most important group is the
General Assembly. I was the President from 1993 to
2002 and then wanted to retire. So I called a meeting
of the General Assembly and told them I wanted to
rest. That created a big stir in Group 5 and the General
Assembly said, No, you cannot resign! What we will
do is elect you as President and you choose the bureau
members. I tried to say no, no, no, but finally what
you cannot resist, you must accept.
As for the management of my group, I really had
to do it, though it was beyond my strength. To help
me, I appointed bureau members and these appointments were validated by the General Assembly. The
General Assembly asked the people holding office to
exercise a strict discipline. The Executive Board and
the 5 sub-groups I established, each led by a chief, had
a precise set of tasks they were to achieve.
The other farmer groups in Gud Chantier are
dependent upon the bank, but this is not true for Group
5. After a couple of years, group 5 decided that they
couldnt go without a savings account so they started
one. The group expects each hectare to contribute to
the financial security of the group. To accomplish their
goal of financial security the group decided on their
own set of rules.
There are two categories of fines. Someone who
does not work or misbehaves is fined for misbehavior. If the rules are broken, the leader determines the
amount of the damage according to the seriousness
from CFA 5,000 to CFA 50,000. These fines are put

into the savings account. The group has community
fields of 15 Ha and the profit from these are also put
into the savings account. Part of our rules are that each
campaign must pay its own debt. If you grow rice, you
pay from that campaign not tomatoes.
Every time we harvest, when the last person
finishes their harvest, the deadline for payment is the
next Monday. People are required to pay their debt with
either cash or the crop immediately following harvest.
Those who do not pay on time are fined. The sanction
is different if they use the crop to feed their family or
if they use it to invest in another plot of land outside
the group, they are charged a percentage of the debt.
During the cool season (January April), farmers in

Gud Chantier, Senegal plant tomatoes, maize, cabbage, onions, and okra. The field in the foreground
is tomatoes. The fields in the center and back of the
picture contain maize inter-planted with various vegetable crops. Many of the trees in the background are
mango trees which were in bloom during Harwoods
February visit. They will bear fruit later in the year.
Then everything we get from sanctions and fines

goes into the account when we finish. We then harvest
the weeds and sell them to the herders. This also goes
into the savings account.
Then we have boxes to carry tomatoes for weighing and the charges for the boxes are put into the account. All we have in common goes into the savings
account.
At the end of the harvest, we evaluate everything
that did not work from a technical or financial perspective.
Last Saturday (February 8, 2014) we had a General Assembly and I invited a director of the bank who
Cont. on p. 2
Article Number 715
Originally published in MidAmerica Farmer Grower, Vol. 35, No. 15, April 11, 2014
Reproduction Permission Granted with 1) full attribution to Daryll E. Ray and the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN;
2) Copy of reproduction sent to Information Specialist, Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, 309 Morgan Hall, Knoxville, TN 37996-4519
PolicyPennings by Daryll E. Ray & Harwood D. Schaffer

Self-reliance is the goal of Farmer Group 5 in
Gud Chantier, Senegal
Self-reliance is the goal of Farmer Group 5 in Gud Chantier, Senegal
Cont. from p. 1
spent the day with us. During our last evaluation we
realized that we had CFA 11.5 million. For the new
crop we have a loan from the bank for approximately
CFA 25 million and CFA 8 million from the group
bank account. 28 percent of the cost of putting in the
new crop comes from the savings of the Group 5. The
interest we will pay back to the bank is CFA 1.5 million. We realized that if this interest rate was going
back into our savings account, we could soon fund our
own loans. Our objective is to fully fund our farming
activities.
The transparency of the leadership group is very
important. We have three campaigns a year: dry, rain,
cool. We meet at length three times a year as the General Assembly before sowing. The leadership visits
each field visit three times during each campaign. The
Executive Board calculates the dues for each person
in the group and that money is put into the savings
account. The General assembly meets at least 9 times a
year plus the annual meeting and the Executive Board

schedules a meeting whenever necessary.
One of the goals that the community leaders and
Harwood set for themselves is to find ways for the
other farmer groups to learn the self-management tools
that Group 5 has developed. In that way the farmers
can exercise greater control over their financial and
agricultural destiny. If the groups have adequate financial reserves, then they can finance crops other than
those the bank is willing to financerice, tomatoes,
and onionsand find additional ways to improve the
financial and nutritional stability of Gud Chantier.
Daryll E. Ray holds the Blasingame Chair of Excellence in Agricultural Policy, Institute of Agriculture,
University of Tennessee, and is the Director of UTs
Agricultural Policy Analysis Center (APAC). Harwood D. Schaffer is a Research Assistant Professor
at APAC. (865) 974-7407; Fax: (865) 974-7298;
dray@utk.edu and hdschaffer@utk.edu; http://www.
agpolicy.org.

Self-Reliance Is The Goal of Farmer Group 5 in Guédé Chantier, Senegal

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Self-Reliance Is The Goal of Farmer Group 5 in Guédé Chantier, Senegal

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Self-Reliance Is The Goal of Farmer Group 5 in Guédé Chantier, Senegal

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

In a conversation Harwood had with the Deputy

Mayor of Gud Chantier, Senegal, Amadou Sy, the

from CFA 5,000 to CFA 50,000. These fines are put

During the cool season (January April), farmers in

Then everything we get from sanctions and fines

Article Number 715

PolicyPennings by Daryll E. Ray & Harwood D. Schaffer

Self-reliance is the goal of Farmer Group 5 in Gud Chantier, Senegal

year plus the annual meeting and the Executive Board

You might also like