Improving the financial sustainability and providing sustainable services to members

SFACFL Dhading is client of Agriterra since 2013. It is a federation of small farmer agricultural cooperatives in Dhading district, with about 42.000 farmers. The federation is member of NACCFL, the APEX organisation of SFACL in Nepal, having about 720 institutional memebrs . Main objective of the federation is to support the members in being good cooperatives both in saving and credit as well as in agriculture. The last three years Agriterra supported this federation in expanding its membership base, resulting in the coverage of the whole district. All member SFACL have their own credit and saving system, and when joining the federation, they get also access to credit facilities of the Small Farmers Development Bank, in ownership of all SFACL of Nepal. Hence acces to credit is (to some level) fulfilled. Agriterra's cooperation focuses more and more on strengthening the Federation in providing good quality services for members to improve the agricultural sector, and do this is a financially sustainable way. The approach is to strengthen the capacity of the so called Lead Farmer: innovating farmers that are open to do new things and dare to take some risks. By training this top layer of farmers and supporting them in playing a model role and coaching role to others, it is expected that more farmers will follow the good examples and will improve their entrepreneurship by better productivity/ better quality and better marketing. Activities will focus on three topics: - record keeping and bench marking at the farm level, - improved soil management techniques and - improved collective marketing/ better access to markets. Dhading was heavily affected by the earth quake (april 2015) . The financial situation of the federation is not so healthy right now, as they waived the interest on loans of the member coops, resulting in a direct and long term loss. Hence , the federation would like to become financialy healthy again and has already taken some measures to overcome the problem caused by an emotionally driven decision. Agriterra will further support the federation in improving its financial management and financial sustainability (see special services.)