Contract Signing

Today I went out to the field with the Lawra AEA, the District Director, MISO (Management of Information Services Officer) guy, and the Extension Director to help them get the farmer contracts for the Expanded Crop Program (aka Block Farms) signed. These contracts should have been in place at the beginning of the program, but alas, they were just being done now.

As I’ve previously described, Block Farming is an interest-free agricultural inputs loan program. Services (e.g. plowing, harrowing) or inputs (e.g. seed, fertilizer) are provided to the farmers to enable them to get a farm going. Specific unit rates per acre were set by the ministry. The farmer must then pay this back, either in cash or in kind within one month of harvest. The services provided to the communities we visited totaled GHC154/acre (plowing, harrowing, seed, fertilizer and shelling). A fixed price per bag of maize has been set by the Ministry such that an in kind payment would be 3.5 bags. The farmer must then make the decision whether it is better to pay in cash, and hope he can sell the 3.5 bags for more money at a future date.

Many farmers had concerns about whether or not the rates were fair. The rates were determined using the assumption that a farmer would yield, on average, 10 bags per acre. What if they don’t get that yield? Will they be able to turn any profit? This is where the concept of the Harvest Committee was introduced. A representative acre is to be selected by each community for threshing and assessment by the Harvest Committee. Based on the yield, the Committee, which is made up of a combination of agric officers and representatives from block farms in an area, will evaluate the harvest and whether or not the rates were fair. They may be room for an adjustment if necessary. A harvest watchman needs to be employed by each block farm to ensure that no crop was stolen or added during between harvest and assessment. The watchman will receive a small salary from MoFA for his work. The farmers were told that if their yield was poor due to their own actions (e.g. not weeding, failing to apply provided fertilizer, etc.) then no loan adjustments would be made. If their crops were affected by things beyond their control (e.g. flooding, drought, etc.), then they would be eligible for adjustment or relief. Some of the passing comments, of both farmers and agric officers, made it seem like some farmers were already taking and “hiding” some of their harvest to make it look like they were not profitable. My thoughts, “And who said farmer were ignorant/lazy?”

At every location, the farmers also expressed concern that they received their inputs late in the season, and therefore the block farm crops are behind. This is true. It was the first year running the program, and it was delayed getting off the ground. MoFA staff reassured that this would be taken into consideration in assessing harvest and loan adjustments. Again, skepticism was received from the farmers.

Additionally, there were some farmers who experienced massive flooding and crop failure. The MoFA staff reassured the farmers that this has already been documented, and the appropriate reports filed, and these loans would be forgiven. The farmers did not seem entirely convinced.

Nevertheless, they appeared willing to sign the contract. Perhaps because they really didn’t have a choice at this point.

As we set out sign the contracts in the first community, we divided the people into queues with each officer who would fill out the form on their behalf. The point was then raised that the spelling of their names should match those that were already on record (I never really thought about the fact that if you are illiterate you probably don’t know how to spell your name). The process was a little chaotic, but we managed to create a system whereby the farmers would come to the AEA, who would write their name on a slip of paper with the spelling that he uses in his records. The farmer would then take their name to one of the other officers who would complete the form. I would then bring the inkpad over, and the farmer would sign via thumbprint. I then collected the forms, and had them signed (thumbprinted) by the farmer group president for a witness signature.

As we were headed to the next community, I suggested that while the Director and AEA were explaining the contracts to the group, the rest of us could fill in the loan information on the forms, and put in the farmer’s names based off of the records. That way, we could then just call each person up one-by-one and get their thumbprint signature. We implemented this process, and our visits to the remaining communities went a lot more smoothly.

I found it kind of humorous that in our last community there were a few folks who could sign their name, but elected to use their thumbprint anyway. Their rationale was that someone could forge their signature, but not their thumbprint. True enough.