Momentum Trust is a Danish Development organization committed to make partnerships with farmer families in Africa for them to be food secure and self-sustaining. We believe that the best way to make a long-term impact is to create powerful business relationships with farmers built on trust and commitment.
Our purpose is to make all our farmers food secure and change their mindset to use the land they own as a business and not only consumption.
Our slogan is developed after interviews with our farmers who usually say “It starts with food”. It really makes sense. If you don’t have food you cannot work, and you cannot feed your children and you are not strong to cater for the family. Our vision is founded in the belief that help to self-help is the best way forward because we believe that human beings biggest wish is to be responsible for their own lives and take care of the family without relying on handouts with no long term effect.
Momentum Trust invests in farmers in Africa by offering effective agronomy training and business skill training. Before the rain season starts we provide all our farmers with hybrid seeds and fertilizers on loan basis. We make it very clear to all the farmers from the beginning that we believe in a business relationship and therefore we do not give handouts. By having this approach we can stay with the farmers in the long run and make sure they grow as we grow. We have strategically placed our office and accommodation in the very rural areas to be close to our farmers so it is easy for them to talk to us and for us to monitor the projects.
We give all our farmers training each week. All training is provided by our local staff who is recruited in partnerships with local universities and word-to-mouth. The farmers mobilize themselves in groups of 10-20 people and pay a small fee to be a Momentum group. This fee is to show Momentum dedication and commitment from the beginning. We also have partnerships with Danish Universities to make it possible for interns to go to Africa and get first-hand experience of working with farmers and create long-term impact in rural Africa.
Our approach is designed after in-depth research in the area to know the farmers and the challenges they have. All the farmers basically have the same challenges. They have a lot of land but do not have access to buy quality inputs and do not have the skills to manage the land effectively. This is why we are based in the rural areas. To make sure they can get proper seeds and fertilizers and make sure they get the training so they can harvest enough to be food secure and even have produce to sell to get money for school fees for the children. We also have partnerships with companies to make sure our farmers have a market to sell their products. An example of this is that our farmers grow sorghum. Then we make partnership with the local breweries as they use sorghum for beer brewing and then they will buy the sorghum from our farmers.
In October 2014 Momentum Trust received a 125.000 DKK donation from One Life Foundation to help Momentum mobilize more farmers. For Momentum Trust to be sustainable it will require high volume of farmers and the donation made it possible to mobilize about 200 additional farmers to the existing 500 farmers we work with. Each family has in average 8 people. So the donation from One Life Foundation will empower approximately 1.200 people.