Page 147 - AFAP Success Stories 2020

National Agricultural Participating in this agricultural exhibition
has helped a lot as we were not selling in
Exhibition Opens New Mara and Shinyanga region; we have been

Market for Suzy Agrovet receiving phone calls from different rural
Agrodealer’s asking for different agricultural
inputs. We have started aggregating demand
through these phones call and managed
to do a couple of distribution trips. I see the
possibilities of selling more in these areas.
Suzana Sabuni

Challenges from the Mara region and some districts of the Shinyanga
region. Opening to new markets benefitted not only
Hub Agrodealers are not reaching part of their potential Suzy Agrovet but also fertilizer, seed and agrochemical
market. This is due to a number of factors such as: lack of companies whose products Suzy Agrovet were selling.
financial muscle to serve the bigger market; customers, Moreover, smallholder farmers benefitted from lower
especially rural Agrodealers, being unaware of Hub prices since before the Agrodealer they dealt with had to
Agrodealers; and the Hub Agrodealers’ lack of information transport the input from Mwanza.
on the market opportunities available. Suzy Agrovet was
facing a similar problem. Suzana (Suzy) Sabun, director
of Suzy Agrovet, felt her business was not well known to Initiative
the other places and also that the demand for agro-input
was still very low. She was operating in Bariadi, Maswa, AFAP Tanzania gave a grant of USD2000 to Suzy Agrovet
Itilia and Meatu districts but she had also been working last season to conduct demo plots, which was not fully
as a superdealer for seed companies such as Seed Co and used, and she remained with a balance. Later, AFAP agreed
Monsanto, and also fertilizer companies a such as Yara to let Suzy to use the remaining balance to participate
Tanzania. By being the superdealer for these agricultural in the Nane Nane National Agricultural Exhibition. The
input companies, she thought expanding to other objective of participating in this event was as a demand-
markets would enable her to sell more to rural Agrodealers creation activity since Suzy intended to educate those

145