Halfway! — Addendum

In response to all your comments about the voucher programme, here’s an addendum to my “Halfway” post.

I’m still compiling some more explicit recommendations, but I would summarize it with the four key points to focus on:
- Simplicity: The system needs to be much more intuitive.
- Timing: The programme needs to be rolled out earlier, right after the last harvest. This is already known
- Information flow: MRI depots weren’t in the loop. The order info needs to be disseminated better
- Advertising: Sales were nil where there was no radio (Serenje), and where there were no MRI staff (Kapiri and Serenje). Better in-store advertising I think will be key.

The stockists I dealt with did find the cell phone transaction system a little troublesome, but they didn’t seem to mind so long as they had someone to contact with problems (myself or MRI staff). That won’t be feasible with a country-wide rollout though, which is why I think the process needs to be greatly simplified. That said, the stockists did like the programme, because they saw it bringing more customers into their shops.

The discount is definitely the biggest incentive for the farmers to participate in the programme, but I think most of the farmers who have participated were already buying hybrid seed. I know that non-hybrid seed is used in more remote areas, but I haven’t really been out in the bush yet. I’m yet to do a village stay. We’re just about to collect a wide reaching survey which will give some insight to where exactly recycled or open-pollinated seed is still being used. As a point of interest, I’m going to try to do two week-long village stays to look into how inputs affect village life. I hope to do one stay in a village where plenty of inputs are used (hybrid seed, fertilizer, pesticides, the works) and one where traditional methods are used, such as chitemene (less reverently called “slash and burn”). Hopefully I can make that work, because I’m curious to see how life in these two types of villages would vary.

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