Media Updates
EAX Promotes Warehouse Receipts Among Maize And Beans Cooperatives
EAX Promotes Warehouse Receipts Among Maize And Beans Cooperatives
The East Africa Exchange (EAX) has targeted maize and beans cooperatives in all the districts of Rwanda to promote the Exchange’s warehouse receipts program. The program is aimed at encouraging the farmers to understand and use warehouse receipts for storing grains in EAX certified warehouses provided by the Rwanda government. Warehouse receipts provide evidence of ownership of grain of a certain quantity and quality. Farmers can use the receipts to secure loans from banks as well as trade them on the Exchange electronic platform directly or through a broker across Rwanda and the East Africa Community regions. EAX is training brokers to represent farmers until they are able to trade on their own.
This campaign also targets the general public to sensitize them about EAX’s products and services, and runs in parallel with the Exchange’s strategy to support more farmer cooperatives throughout Rwanda. EAX currently trades maize and beans, and have targeted other crops including Coffee, Tea and Pyrethrum. The Exchange working with MINAGRI has identified ten (10) districts where there are large concentrations of maize and beans cooperatives. In preparation for the live event, the Exchange works closely with local government authorities, namely the office of the District Mayors, to get to the farmers. Also the Rwanda Cooperative Agency (RCA) has been supportive in getting the Exchange to link up with various cooperatives.
The first awareness campaign event was held in Nyanza, the Southern Province earlier this October. The districts that followed were Kayonza, the Eastern province and Karongi, the Western province. In the next week following, the Eastern would be targeted, then subsequently other districts including the Northern Province.
So far, the Exchange has recruited about 17 farmer’s cooperatives, representing over 15,000 farmers who will be engaging with the Exchange in the coming harvest season. EAX is further targeting 35 farmers’ cooperatives for this season’s harvest.