AGRA

By AGRA Content Hub

Mama Mbwilo is a Hub Agro dealer located Sumbawanga Municipal in Rukwa Region, Tanzania. She started the business with a working capital of USD $2,202 and her business has grown up to almost USD $110,132 which helps her to serve majority number of small holders in both rural and urban areas of Sumbawanga region.

Mama Mbwilo started the business of selling farm inputs to smallholders in agriculture season of 2015/2016 in urban area, but later in 2018 her shop expanded to other 9 mini-branches of agro shops in villages. Through
SUKA Consortium, Mama Mbwilo participated in various trainings and meetings organized by PiATA TIJA Tanzania including – Business Management training, Financial literacy training and product knowledge trainingsheld by TOSCI, TPRI and TFRA.

She leveraged on the importance of using and working closely with Village Based Advisors (VBAs) and Rural Agro dealer’s through linkages support. Through PiATA TIJA Tanzania, Mama Mbwilo has been able to improveher distribution channel by working with more 30 VBA’s and 13 rural retail agro shops operating in Rukwa region.

For the year 2019/2020 Mama Bwilo serviced more than 10,000 smallholder farmers with agricultural advisory service and improved agricultural inputs. For the season 2019/2020, she managed to sell 437MTs of seed and200MTs of fertilizer amongst other inputs. Diversified her product range as currently, Mama Mbwilo is working the following input companies; Meru Agro Tours, SEEDCO, PANNAR, Beula Seed Company, Monsanto, YARA fertilizer Company, Export Trading company, FALCON, A to Z, PPTL, andOCP.

Her future plan is to increase number of VBAs, Rural retail agro dealers and expand channel distribution for farm input to small holder farmers to other regions apart from Rukwa.