Mer-ber Cooperative society, Nebbi district attract Youth to Cassava production

Introduction 
Mer ber Cooperative society started as a VSLA in 2008 with 38 members. According to Mr Ogey Paul the Manager, in 2011 the VSAL was registered as a cooperative owned by members. In 2014 it was able to attract financing from USAIF to put up the rice machine which has been serving members of the community. The Cooperative now has over 500 members with 120 members registered in the e-Voucher. More Youth have also been attracted to the cooperative. Members are engaged in cassava production with over 200 acres of crop. Paul says as a cooperative they need much more farm land. This is to match the capacity of the cassava processing machine which they acquired from the ACDP matching grant. 
Mer-ber youth members prepare cassava for drying

ACDP Matching grant 
In 2020, the Cooperative acquired a matching grant of Shs 406,871,000 to construct a store, a solar drier and buy a cassava processing machine. This was to help save the farmer’s time since the machine would be able to peel, dry and mill the flour. This would reduce time for the farmer to be able to engage in other activities. They expect that when the post harvest handling facility is commissioned, farmers will benefit. 
 
Constructed solar drying facility

Benefits 
As cooperative, Paul says they are able to market the cassava for members, control the quality of the product and maintain standards. There is reduction in cost of production since members will be processing their cassava from one point. He mentioned that research was needed in terms of quality for export and asked that if such research exists it should be shared with the cooperatives. On the e-Voucher system, Paul said it was a good system in terms of centralizing the acquisition of subsidized inputs from government.

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