Mr Nivison Stock                                                                                                                           

This year I have managed to deposit 7.1Mt of maize. I trusted the system because I was told by the National Agricultural Smallholder Farmers Association Malawi which I know and have worked with. They said the warehouse would be secure and safe and I agreed when I saw it so I bought my maize here. The best thing was that I got 70 percent of the value of the maize at K245,000 and with that money I bought dairy cattle and also sent my five children to school. If I did not have my maize here then I would have sold to a vendor for a much lower price, around K40-45. With my maize in the warehouse I can decide when I want to sell and I will not sell for less than K75 as now I know about the prices from ACE. They keep me up to date with what prices there are in town. If I didn't get that finance up-front I would have had problems in paying school fees but also ploughing the field and paying for labour and other inputs like seed and fertiliser for the next season. I usually do the labour and plough the fields myself, but I need to get some help as well. I managed to harvest the 7.1Mt that I have put in the warehouse as I am an accomplished farmer and I have plenty of maize to eat at home as well. I am going to encourage other farmers to start planting early so that they can deposit their maize and get finance.  Next year this warehouse will not be big enough and I am enthusiastic we will be able to improve on our harvests.