Selling the Harvest

"We sorted and graded the apples ourselves, we didn't have to bargain, and the traders trusted us," says Mariam of the fall apple sale that Mercy Corps facilitated. "It was much more civilized than before." Photo: Jason Sangster for Mercy Corps

Tamga, Kyrgyzstan — Mariam Jeenalieve's backyard orchard produces a colorful mix of apples: there's the Chinese Kulon Kitika, recognized by its alternate streaks of pink and lime-green, the golden-yellow Tashaima, and an inordinate number of pale-red McIntosh.

The 60-year-old retired teacher has spent the last several days plucking, grading and sorting these apples, then placing them into wooden crates stacked neatly near her house. Now comes the real challenge: attracting a buyer.

But after some help from Mercy Corps, selling her fruits is less daunting than ever.

Last week, Mariam sold five crates — about 65 kilograms worth — of several varietals to a Kyrgyz apple distributor in a deal brokered by Mercy Corps. In all, villagers in Tamga and neighboring Tosor sold the distributor 15 tons of apples at nine soms per kilo, or about 11 cents per pound. That's 10 to 20 percent more than Mariam and her neighbors usually receive for their finest-quality apples.

Earlier in the season, Mercy Corps had put potential buyers in touch with village leaders as part of The Apple Project, a multifaceted attempt by Mercy Corps and its affiliated microlender, Kompanion, to increase incomes in two farming villages on the south shore of Lake Issyk-Kul.

Mariam demonstrates the proper way to prune a tree. "I'm happy to tell you I didn't miss any seminars" put on by agronomists hired by The Apple Project, she says proudly. Photo: Jason Sangster for Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps acted as an "honest broker," making contact with Kyrgyz distributors who ship apples into Russia and educating farmers on how to grade, sort and pack the apples according to buyer standards. Working in groups, villagers judged whether each apple was big enough to sell by comparing it to rolls of scotch tape distributed by Mercy Corps, checked for any disqualifying scratches or wormholes, then wrapped each apple in a Styrofoam netting before placing them in crates.

Previously, growers in Tamga and Tosor hadn't had the time or the information to earn top-dollar on their apples, according to Robin Currey, a Mercy Corps consultant to the Apple Project. A buyer's truck would pull into town, disseminate crates to local growers and wait for them to return with apples. Then they'd inevitably haggle over quality, size and price.

In this system, growers had little leverage; they didn't know when trucks would arrive and felt pressured to sell to the first one they saw, Currey says.

But buyers don't like the process, either. Many prefer to buy from large Chinese farms rather than deal with the headaches of negotiating with multiple sellers — in Tosor, for example, 285 households grow apples on land that all together might equal the size of a single apple orchard in the U.S.

By comparison, both growers and distributors applauded the improvements in this fall's trading process.

"We really liked the new way," says Mariam, standing under the canopy formed by two rows of 16-year-old apple trees. "We sorted and graded the apples ourselves, we didn't have to bargain, and the traders trusted us. It was much more civilized than before."

Currey says the distributors told her it was their best buying experience ever, mainly because they were able to pare the time it takes to fill their truck from about one full week to 36 hours. They've already committed to returning to the village later this year to purchase winter apple varieties.

Mariam will have more top-quality apples then thanks to what she learned from monthly farming seminars held by Kompanion agronomists. Mariam says she hasn't missed a single seminar since they began last summer. Even a slight increase in apple yield or price makes a difference for Mariam and her husband, a retired physician. Their annual income from apple sales is already larger than what they receive from their modest government pensions.

She demonstrates what she's learned on some young trees near the back of their property. They are pruned correctly — inward-growing branches are lopped off at an angle, and not too close to the main branch — and the soil around the trunk has been exposed to let in water and nutrients. "We learned everything, starting from the point at which we plant the tree to how to harvest it."

Like the other 200 participants in the loan program, she used a $75 loan to buy several dozen apple-tree seedlings, which she planted on the piece of a former Soviet collective farm she now owns. To track her success, Mariam keeps meticulous records with the help of a log sheet and 10-kilogram scale that Mercy Corps distributed to all participants.

"Each day I'm writing down what I am selling, drying, storing, eating, throwing away — everything about the apples," she says. "It'll be very good for comparing year-to-year results and the prices we got."

And she expects those year-to-year numbers to increase. "In the future, we'll ask buyers to come and we'll promise to sort the apples according to all their standards and rules. And they will promise," she adds with a sly smile, "to raise their price."

Sounds like a farmer who finally has some bargaining power.