By Catherine Craig, Mamy Ratsimbazafy | CPALI/SPALI directors
SEPALI FARMERS TEACH THE TEAM A THING OR TWO – At the beginning of every year, the SEPALI team announces the “rules” for the coming year – for example, the amount of money farmers will earn per kilo, the number of cocoons that need to be deposited/workshop invitation. Every year we learn something new.
In 2014 we found that farmers were depositing only the minimum number of cocoons to receive a workshop invitation, 200. Our workshop expenses were very high; hence we initiated the global giving campaign 2014 to help us pay for them. In 2015, we tried to encourage farmers’ to produce more cocoons and, we changed the minimum from 200 to 800 cocoons per workshop invitation. While production in 2014 from January to May was 11000, in 2015, farmers only produced 4600 in the same time period. Furthermore, in 2014 21 farmers participated in production during the early part of the year and but in 2015 only 6 farmers participated - not a good result.
Obviously the farmers have spoken – we are back to 200 cocoons per workshop invitation. It seems clear that farmers need little rewards (stepping stones) along the way to achieve a larger goal. Furthermore, little steps encourage many more farmers participate and many more make deposits. Thank you GG for helping us to understand this. Who says you can’t change horses mid-stream?
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