Instead of packaging seeds in large volumes, Mme. Coulibaly provides seeds of sorghum, rice, millet, maize, ground nuts, cowpeas, and beans in various size packages, making them easier for farmers to buy and use. (Photo credit: Bernard Pollack)
Madame Coulibaly does something that many seed dealers in Mali and other parts of Africa usually don’t —she keeps her prices low enough for small, cash-scarce farmers to afford. And instead of packaging seeds in large volumes, Mme. Coulibaly provides seeds of sorghum, rice, millet, maize, ground nuts, cowpeas, and beans in variously size packages, making them easier for farmers to buy and use.
Coulibaly explained that before she and her husband began Faso Kabo Seed Company, partly with funding from a grant from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, “people weren’t taking the seed from here (Mali), but taking it from the West.” In other words, there weren’t many places for farmers to buy locally produced and certified seed. That’s changing, however. In addition to advertising her products on radio and television, Mme. Coulibaly has hired and trained agro-dealers who travel to rural communities to sell seeds directly to farmers.
In addition to “being able to take care of me and my family,” from starting the seed dealership, says Coulibaly, she’s also been able to expand the business with two seed outlets, hire 6 full-time employees, and have a part-time staff that helps package seed. Unfortunately, she says, it hasn’t been easy for her to find or hire female agro-dealers to reach more female farmers because it’s harder for them to travel. But women make up the majority of seed growers, working through cooperatives to provide seed to Faso Kabo.
More importantly, says Coulibaly, “people have told me that since they’ve started buying her seed they don’t have to buy additional food because they’re self-sufficient.”
Watch Mme. Coulibaly describe how her seeds are helping to improve her own livelihood, as well as the livelihoods of the local farmers that use her seeds:
Danielle Nierenberg, an expert on livestock and sustainability, currently serves as Project Director of State of World 2011 for the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental think tank. Her knowledge of factory farming and its global spread and sustainable agriculture has been cited widely in the New York Times Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and
other publications.
Danielle worked for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. She is currently traveling across Africa looking at innovations that are working to alleviate hunger and poverty and blogging everyday at Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet. She has a regular column with the Mail & Guardian, the Kansas City Star, and the Huffington Post and her writing was been featured in newspapers across Africa including the Cape Town Argus, the Zambia Daily Mail, Coast Week (Kenya), and other African publications. She holds an M.S. in agriculture, food, and environment from Tufts University and a B.A. in environmental policy from Monmouth College.
