When I was a kid, I remember my dad routinely encouraging me in the midst of failure as I grew up.  “It doesn’t matter so much that you failed,” he would say.  “What matters most is that you learn from this failure and don’t repeat the same mistakes that led you here in the future.”  As a result of dad’s willingness to allow me to mess up as a kid, I have developed a strong tendency to be fairly risk-taking in most endeavors that I have undertaken over the years.  The merits (or lack thereof) of this characteristic I possess can be (and are) hotly debated often by those closest to me, but the one thing all can agree on is that this characteristic inevitably produces some failure along the way.

Failure is a very important part of growth as a leader.  Failing, admitting that you have failed, and then learning valuable lessons from that failure enables a leader to effectively take advantage of opportunities as they come up, better understand his own limitations as a leader, and experience a higher chance of success when faced with similar challenges in the future.  As part of Nuru’s commitment to learn and grow, I want to tell you a bit about a pretty big failure with the agribusiness program we just experienced that we seek to learn a great deal from in moving forward.

One of the goals of Nuru’s agriculture program is to introduce a cash crop that our farmers can plant during the short rains season.  The main reasons for this goal are to build more crop diversity into Nuru’s ag program, provide a cash crop that serves as an alternative to tobacco and the harmful effects of farming tobacco, and to help the farmers produce a higher level of increased income to more adequately empower them to make wise choices in planning for their family’s future.

In January, we decided to try to experiment with teff as our first cash crop.  Teff is a wheat-like crop that serves as the main ingredient in Ethiopian injera bread.  Why teff?  The short answer is that we were absolutely certain of a large, untapped market that would allow our farmers to capture large margins, and teff is simple to farm.  How did we know this?  A year ago, USAID issued us a grant as part of their Market Linkages Initiative to help us improve the efficiency of our maize-buying business.  As part of that program, they also introduced us to several larger players in the commodities trading business in an effort to help Nuru connect small-holder farmers with larger, more stable markets.  USAID set up a partnership with the third largest exporter of commodities in Kenya, and we began to talk with them about maize markets and markets for other crops.  I visited the company’s corporate HQ in Nairobi to discuss them becoming a buyer of Nuru maize.  The corporation’s leadership team insisted that, instead, we begin producing teff with our farmers.  They quoted prices for teff in the east African markets as high as 1,000ksh/kg which was truly astonishing.  They were certain of the stability of this large, untapped market.  They even agreed to give us a small handful of seed if we would run a pilot with a few farmers and consider rolling out teff as a Nuru cash crop.  Not knowing any better, we left the office excited about the potential for this new cash crop and the seemingly large, untapped market for teff.

After we got back in Kuria, we planted the spoonful of seed we had been given as a demonstration plot at the granary and collected 13kgs of teff at harvest.  The crop seemed perfect.  It had a good yield, a short three-month growing cycle, required no fertilizer or chemicals, and was easy to farm.  We decided to pilot the crop with a group of 22 farmers to see what yields we could produce and what challenges we would encounter at a slightly larger scale.  Even though our staff was sworn to secrecy, rumors began to circulate through the farmers (as they always do) about the unusually high price this crop could bring in the market.  Subsequently, excitement about teff travelled and grew quickly throughout the seven sub-locations where we are currently operating.  Farmers closely monitored the progress of the teff as the 22 pilot farmers grew and maintained the crop.

Harvest time came…amazing success!  The 22 pilot farmers had been given 0.5kg each to plant, and they harvested 160kg on average.  At the original quoted price, this would have been an incredible, life-changing profit for the farmers (after cost of farming approximately 130,000Ksh or $1,400 each).  So, we went back to the company to report our success and tell them we were ready for large-scale production and rollout to all 2,000 Nuru farmers in the short rains season.  The company refused to buy our product at the pre-arranged price, stating that the markets had changed wildly.  “Well, what price can you give us then,” I asked as I tried to control myself from exploding.  “You know,” the manager on the other end of the line said in an indifferent, unapologetic tone, “the market for teff in other parts of east Africa has really dried up.  We can give you 60Ksh – 100Ksh per kg.”  I was devastated.  At that price, some of the farmers wouldn’t even be able to pay for their cost of farming the pilot crop.  I aggressively looked for other markets we could tap into in order to realize a larger margin for our farmers, but came up dry in my search.  We eventually bought the teff from our 22 pilot farmers at 100Ksh/kg, and then had to pay them additional money to cover the cost of experimentation that they had incurred during the trial.  They and the other farmers were not happy with the results.  They were frustrated with my inability to secure a better market, and they were justified in their frustration.

I learned a lot of lessons in this failure – lessons I wish I didn’t have to learn at such a high cost to the community:

• Research markets thoroughly via multiple sources before even making a decision on a pilot.
• Verify stability, size, and current conditions of potential markets prior to a decision on a pilot.
• Don’t trust leads on commodities markets just because they come from a credible, reputable firm.  Single-source leads should never be relied on in isolation in cash crop selection – even in the pilot phase.
• Manage expectations of the community.  Set expectations very low and be 100% sure of your ability to deliver on those expectations before releasing ANY information to the community about a new initiative.

I learned valuable lessons that will allow us to grow and more effectively select better cash crops with more secure markets.  Nuru farmers proved to be even more gracious than my dad in putting up with my failures.  They are cautiously optimistic that we have learned from this first mistake and will provide a viable secure market in the next trial.  So, the search for a viable cash crop in the short rains continues.  If any of you have any interesting leads that you think could be options for us to research and consider, please pass them along.  I can assure you that we will thoroughly research the viability of a stable market before implementing a pilot.

I weaved in and out of the tall maize stalks as James and I hurried to keep up with Emmanuel, a Nuru Field Officer overseeing 56 new Nuru farmers in a small collection of villages known as Ihore in the Kuria West District of southwest Kenya.  We were moving quickly through the “shamba” (farm) of Mwita Marwa, one of Emmanuel’s farmers, on our way to visit Mwita at his home. As I moved through the maize, I gazed in awe at the height of Mwita’s maize – some stalks reached ten feet.  On our way to Mwita’s hut, we emerged from the forest of maize into the stark contrast of Mwita’s neighbor’s shamba.  The neighbor’s field was dry and sparsely populated with sad-looking 2-3 foot stalks of maize bearing no actual cobs.  We paused.  “There will be hunger here,” James said with sad eyes. “Again,” I said. “Yes,” James said. “There will be so many this season.”  Previously, I had been used to seeing the sharp difference in the maize yields of Nuru farmers and those who had not enrolled yet…but this was different.  Since I returned from the States a couple weeks ago, we have encountered shamba after shamba of desolate maize fields which will yield less than two bags of maize per acre. (Most families require six to feed themselves between harvests.) James lingered in the shamba. “The drought has come again to Kenya.”

Just as you’ve read and seen in the news over the past three months, prolonged drought conditions have gripped East Africa and are dragging the region into the desperate depths of cruel famine. Entire populations that were already suffering from chronic hunger have now fled into neighboring countries as refugees, in search of relief from the famine.  These migrations are bringing even further instability to an already chaotic region – destabilizing nearby countries and producing conditions that strengthen extremist groups operating in the Horn of Africa.

The World Food Programme (WFP) stated that these prolonged drought conditions combined with the never-ending conflict in Somalia are now affecting over 13 million people. The United Nations declared two entire regions in southern Somalia to be in a state of famine – effectively declaring nearly half the population of Somalia (3.7 million people) now in imminent danger of starvation. Over 3,000 refugees are flooding across the Somali border into neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya every single day. Al Shabaab (the Al Qaeda-linked extremist group) continues to be an obstacle to aid groups attempting to provide relief in the region (WFP alone has lost 14 relief workers recently).

The famine is absolutely overwhelming. As I read those facts, I couldn’t help but feel a growing sense of despair in the pit of my stomach – quickly followed by a protective, defensive, tough layer of apathy because this global humanitarian crisis won’t impact me personally. This tough layer of apathy has been a protective cushion for me for most of my life – until I joined the fight against extreme poverty.

How do we even begin to think about this global crisis and our role (or lack thereof) in addressing it? We must begin by taking small, actionable steps. Lasting gains in a fight are made through small victories along the way – not all in one leap.  Let me share about ways that Nuru is addressing the injustice of this crisis – and about the small steps that you are helping us take to gain ground in the fight against extreme poverty.

Hunger has indeed come to Kenya again.  Kenya is no stranger to drought.  The 1980s brought several severe periods of drought that brought hunger and devastation to all of east Africa. However, this time is different for a remote pocket of southwest Kenya.  In January, before drought conditions were fully realized in Kenya, 2,000 smallholder farmers took out Nuru agriculture loans for high quality fertilizer and seed and were trained in best practices in growing maize. As the maize grew, the drought became more severe and signs of suffering began to appear in the villages here in Kuria.  While Nuru farmers have been affected by the drought (most will realize a 20-30% decrease in yield this season), the incredible news is that they still have more than enough to feed their families for the whole season and pay off their agriculture loan.

Programs like Nuru’s are tapping into the potential of the poor to create their own solutions to extreme poverty by introducing a framework of simple, scalable, and sustainable ideas (like Nuru’s agriculture program) to trained local leaders and then equipping these leaders to scale these ideas. Both Nuru leaders and farmers are hungry, but it is a different kind of hunger than those suffering in the famine. They are hungry for choice. They are hungry for the opportunity to create and own their future and have hope for lasting solutions to the seemingly impossible challenges they faced before. They are hungry for change, and they are pursuing that change using all that is within them.

As we approached Mwita’s hut, we immediately noticed he was beaming. He began talking excitedly to James as they shook hands vigorously. “Karibu marafiki yangu! Mimi ni farahi sana kwa sababu hakuna nja. Uliona mahindi yangu? Sasa hakuna nja!” (“Welcome my friends! I am so so happy because there is no hunger! Did you see my maize? Now there is no hunger!”)

I watched as James, with beaming satisfaction, listened to Mwita share his family’s story of triumph this season. “Small steps,” I thought. “Small steps.”

Recently we made a decision that will have a big impact on the agriculture program and the model itself.  Starting in 2011, we decided to issue input loans to farm maize only during the long rains season – not during both the long rains and short rains.  This seems like a small statement and a decision that wouldn’t have much of a significant effect on the program, but the ripple effects from this decision will change many parts of the model – including the pace of scale, how we source and train leaders, our ability to experiment with new cash crops, and dramatic shifts in cash flow in and out of the Kenyan project.  This decision was a very difficult one to make because in addition to having a big impact on the Nuru model, it will also could have a potentially negative impact on the community itself with regards to hunger. Continue Reading…

Posted from Nyanza, Kenya.

I thought in this post that I would take some time to describe Nuru’s agriculture model and talk about some of the ideas behind why we have taken this approach.  There are two main problems we are tackling through Nuru’s agriculture model: chronic hunger with a lack of an economic byields and access to fair markets for smallholder bases in remote rural communities.  We attempt to address these challenges via the main goals of the agriculture program:

Continue Reading…

Posted from Nyanza, Kenya.

CED Program Manager, Vivian Lu, talks with Moherai Joseph, Agriculture Field Manager, after the recent harvest. Joseph shows how the new method of shelling maize is better than what they did in the past.