Financing Higher Yields

Kavita, 28, and her husband farm vegetables, own a few dairy cows and cultivate a small rice paddy, endeavors that support themselves and their 14-month-old daughter.

Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Thalankudha, Sri Lanka — When I met farmer Suman Suntharalingam in front of his mud-walled home here, he had just returned from selling 15 pounds of long beans and buying fuel for his water pump — two tasks that could be traced back to help he received from Mercy Corps.

Twenty-nine-year-old Suman and his wife, Kavita, 28, coax long beans, eggplant, bitter gourd, and corn out of one-and-a-half acres of sandy soil not far from the aqua-blue waters of the Indian Ocean. They also own a few dairy cows and cultivate a small rice paddy, endeavors that support themselves and their 14-month-old daughter. Last August they received a loan of 15,000 Sri Lankan rupees, or about US$122, from a community loan fund set up by Mercy Corps.

The loan fund is administered by a 15-member elected body called the Community Action Group, or CAG. Mercy Corps established the group to guide our post-tsunami investments in Thalankudha. Before choosing to establish the revolving loan fund, the CAG had spent recovery monies on reconstructing roads vital to getting goods to market and on building 30 agricultural wells for the village farmers to share.

A focus on livelihoods

Back in 2004, the tsunami waters didn't quite reach the Sutharalingam's home, but it led household incomes to plummet all along the coast. Thousands of lives were lost, fields were soaked in crop-slaying saltwater, marketplaces were washed away. Ensuring coastal residents recover their livelihoods is the main focus of Mercy Corps' work.

"I applied for a loan more than ten times before this," Suman told me. "Many people visited the plot, but no one came back (to give me the loan)." Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

With their loan, Suman and Kavita purchased bean seeds, fertilizer and, most importantly, a reconditioned water pump.

"Before, the main problem was watering the crops," Suman explained to me at his home, a good walk from his field. "I had to do it by hand, and it was very difficult."

To get the water, he essentially had to dig down into the sand until his shovel reached the water table, scoop the water out with a basketball-sized metal urn he showed us, and laboriously pour it over the crops. Watering this way took four hours. Today, with the water pump, it takes 30 minutes.

With the extra time the couple is devoting more attention to tending their crops — and selling them. They're paying monthly loan payment on time, spending less at the market on vegetables and squeezing more profits from their land.

Improving the farm

Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Suman says he plans to use the additional income to work on his unfinished three-year-old home. He wants to order window casings, install wooden doors where corrugated-metal doors are now, and plaster the inside walls. He'd also like to save enough money to start cultivating chilis, which are most costly to grow, but also more profitable.

"I applied for a loan more than ten times before this. Many people visited the plot, but no one came back (to give me the loan)." Did he expected the same result with Mercy Corps? "Yes," he laughs. "I thought I would be disappointed again."

Instead, he and his family found their wishes fulfilled.