Fatima Bolacha used to run her farming business on the wing. That all changed after she received training on managing a business profitably through the OTUMIHA project, an initiative of Alliance of Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) designed to enhance agribusiness in Mozambique.
“OTUMIHA offered me the best tools to develop my business,” Bolacha says about the training on business management he received from OTUMIHA.
Bolacha, from the district of Ribaué, in Nampula, the northern region of Mozambique, is a beneficiary of AGRA funding through the OTUMIHA project where she has been working for four years.
Bolacha says that before the training with OTUMIHA, she spent $4,600.00 buying produce for selling each season. She has halved this cost since here training from OTUMIHA.
Bolacha buys processes and sells maize, maple and cassava products under her own FALI brand. She has operated this business for the last ten years.
“Comparing the past to the present I can say there is huge difference. There are times I thought that those expenses and values ​​do not need to control, but today I admit that every coin in the business must be accounted for, I managed to improve and reduce costs,” Bolacha said.
“I began buying and selling products in 2005 with the objective of gaining means for life. In 2007 the energy of the national network reached the village of Ribaué and this gave me idea that in addition to selling could do processing,” explains Bolacha.
Bolacha has been involved on the OTUMIHA project implemented by MIRUKU COOP consortium, an AGRA grantee operating at Nacala Corridor, north Mozambique in the last four years. The project is known as “sustainable market project for small producers”. Through the OTUMIHA intervention, farmers have successfully sold 17500 MT of maize ad 6000MT of soy bean to off takers in the 2017/2018 season.
