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Value-Added Rice Milling in Madibira
Grantee: Madibira Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Society
(MAMCOS)
Country: Tanzania
Project Title: Value Added Rice Milling, Storage and Marketing for
Small-Scale Farmers of Madibira Project
Amount: US $220,925
Duration: FY 2004-2008
ADF is providing support to the Madibira Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Society (MAMCOS) to help the organization purchase, mill and store more of the rice produced by its 3,000 smallholder members.
 Located in the Mbarali District, in Tanzania’s Great Ruaha River Valley, MAMCOS members have been growing rice in lowland, river-fed paddies since Tanzania liberalized the price of the staple crop in the 1980s. In 1997, an original group of 1,250 smallholders joined together to register MAMCOS as a rice milling, storage, and marketing organization. The cooperative provides its members with the opportunity to store their harvest, and it negotiates bulk sales on their behalf when prices are at a premium. Over the past eight years, MAMCOS has more than doubled in size, and its membership now includes 1,100 women farmers.
In 2003, MAMCOS purchased 927 metric tons of paddy rice from local smallholders and acquired an additional 720 tons of rice through in-kind payments of membership fees. The rice was later sold for 191 million Tanzania shillings (US $174,000).
ADF’s investment in MAMCOS will provide the organization with the financing it needs to expand its milling capacity, meet the processing demands of local growers, and help farmers produce more rice at better quality. Foundation funds will provide MAMCOS with resources to:
 • Finance a crop purchase fund that will increase the cooperative’s capacity to buy more rice from its members;
• Purchase technical assistance and training that will help the cooperative improve the quality and delivery of extension services; and
• Improve the maintenance and efficiency of its milling equipment.
The project will help MAMCOS increase its milling capacity from 1.0 to 3.5 tons per hour and allow the organization to create an adequate and sustainable crop purchase fund. Members’ incomes are also expected to increase from an annual average of 507,000 Tanzanian shillings (US $461) per person to 952,668 (US $866) by the end of the project. Tanzania’s average per capita income is currently US $300.*
*Atlas method
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
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