Seedlings of Change

Photo: Jason Sangster for Mercy Corps

Nearly one million families in Kyrgyzstan tend home gardens. Most of these families grow apples. And many rely on the income they get from the round fruits — which originated in modern-day Kyrgyzstan and its northern neighbor, Kazakhstan — for life's basic necessities.

Mercy Corps and its microfinance institution, Kompanion, are helping household apple farmers in two Kyrgyz villages to grow more and better varieties, and to command top dollar for their harvest.

It's called, simply enough, The Apple Project. It blends financial services like loans with traditional development assistance to increase top-quality apple production and expand profitable sales opportunities. It works by taking aim at the poor horticultural skills and a lack of sophisticated markets which hamper the ability of households to make the most from what they grow.

Each story in this series introduces you to a different grower who benefits from one or more parts of this multifaceted project. The fourth and final segment features a nine-minute video produced by The Apple Project that describes each part of the process. By providing workshops and loans, coordinating marketing efforts, and renovating a cold-storage facility, we're lifting incomes in one of Central Asia's poorest countries.