Meet Oumou, a true early adopter – in fact, she is the very proud first farmer to ever enrol with myAgro in Senegal, with proof in her 6-digit ID number being 000001! Â Since our initial pilot program, Oumou has been continuing to work on developing her fields with the support of myAgro and our field agents.
Like Oumou, the vast majority of myAgro’s farmers in Senegal chose to save for and plant peanut packets with us. Â As part of myAgro’s program, 1-1 coaching is provided by a field agent to ensure our farmers have the personalised support and encouragement from Day One. Â Pape Talla Diallo, Oumou’s current field agent, is in her area of Seworo several days a week. Before planting, he trained her on planting methods and proper weeding, helped to plan planting dates and checked that her plot was adequately prepared. When it came time to plant, he was with Oumou when she began to plant her field. They planted several lines together to ensure that she fully understood the myAgro method and the reasoning behind it. A week or so later, when her field began to germinate, Talla came back to evaluate its progress. He will continue to follow up with her and encourage her, discussing proper weeding, how to apply a second “microdose” of fertilizer once her plants have been growing for approximately four weeks, and later on how to harvest and store her peanuts before selling and consuming them.
This year, our germination rates have been challenging, to say the least!  One of the major factors for this is the extremely scant rainfall we have received.  As we continue to trial and test new approaches, we are very optimistic to improving peanut yields, so watch this space for our next peanut update!
