Negotiation For Fertilizer
JEANNE BRETT
Negotiating for Fertilizer
Moises Postigo, manager of external relations and research for One Acre Fund (OAF), needed to buy fertilizer for farmers enrolled in OAF’s program in Bungoma, Kenya. The conditions under which he would do so were complex: OAF was just two years old. This would be its first large acquisition of fertilizer. Postigo had five potential suppliers, none of whom he had ever met face-to-face and would not during these negotiations.
Over a period of several weeks, Postigo leveraged his knowledge of the relationship-oriented
Kenyan culture, his sensitivity to the fact that the product he was buying was a commodity, the growth strategy of his NGO, and his awareness of the Kenyan government’s evolving farm support policies to successfully negotiate a deal for fertilizer and build a relationship with a new supplier. The One Acre Fund
“Empowering the chronically hungry to pull themselves out of poverty.”
OAF was founded by Andrew Youn in January 2006 as a not-for-profit organization with the goal of solving the chronic hunger problem in Africa—not by giving food away, but by providing the resources necessary for farm families to grow enough food to feed themselves. OAF’s approach to eradicating hunger in Africa rests on these principles:
•
Empower local, pre-existing self-help groups
•
Provide farm education
•
Provide capital, including environmentally-sensitive planting materials and fertilizer
•
Connect members to established output markets
OAF works with the poorest of the poor: farm families that do not raise sufficient crops to feed themselves, much less sell surplus to buy seed and fertilizer. OAF’s core mission is to
“empower persistently hungry farm families to grow their way out of hunger” (One Acre Fund home page). Its core values are:
•
We don’t give handouts—we empower permanent life change. Lasting change must rely on the poor themselves.
©2009 by the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. This
Negotiating for Fertilizer
Moises Postigo, manager of external relations and research for One Acre Fund (OAF), needed to buy fertilizer for farmers enrolled in OAF’s program in Bungoma, Kenya. The conditions under which he would do so were complex: OAF was just two years old. This would be its first large acquisition of fertilizer. Postigo had five potential suppliers, none of whom he had ever met face-to-face and would not during these negotiations.
Over a period of several weeks, Postigo leveraged his knowledge of the relationship-oriented
Kenyan culture, his sensitivity to the fact that the product he was buying was a commodity, the growth strategy of his NGO, and his awareness of the Kenyan government’s evolving farm support policies to successfully negotiate a deal for fertilizer and build a relationship with a new supplier. The One Acre Fund
“Empowering the chronically hungry to pull themselves out of poverty.”
OAF was founded by Andrew Youn in January 2006 as a not-for-profit organization with the goal of solving the chronic hunger problem in Africa—not by giving food away, but by providing the resources necessary for farm families to grow enough food to feed themselves. OAF’s approach to eradicating hunger in Africa rests on these principles:
•
Empower local, pre-existing self-help groups
•
Provide farm education
•
Provide capital, including environmentally-sensitive planting materials and fertilizer
•
Connect members to established output markets
OAF works with the poorest of the poor: farm families that do not raise sufficient crops to feed themselves, much less sell surplus to buy seed and fertilizer. OAF’s core mission is to
“empower persistently hungry farm families to grow their way out of hunger” (One Acre Fund home page). Its core values are:
•
We don’t give handouts—we empower permanent life change. Lasting change must rely on the poor themselves.
©2009 by the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. This
References: Ariga, J. E. (2008, September 17). Trends and Patterns in Fertilizer Use by Smallholder Farmers in Kenya, 1997–2007 Borgonovi, V. (2008, December). One Acre Fund Employee. (N. Tilzer, Interviewer) Buger, K After Market Liberalization: Evidence From Kenya. Retrieved November 23, 2008, from Wageningen University Department of Economics, http://library.wur.nl/file/wurpubs/ Fritschel, H. (2002, July). Nurturing the Soil in Sub-Saharan Africa. News & Views: A 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture and the Environment, pp Jackson, A. (2008, November). One Acre Fund Summer Intern 2008. (K. Nelson and N. Tilzer, Interviewers) Kenya. (2008, October 09). International Monetary Fund. Lytle, A., Brett, J., Barsness, Z., Tinsley, C., & Janssens, M. (1995). A Paradigm for Confirmatory Cross-Cultural Research in Organizational Behavior Maene, L. M. (2007, August). International Fertilizer Supply and Demand. Retrieved November 23, Manja, J. E. (2008). The Impact of Rising Food Prices on Disparate Livelihoods Groups in Kenya. MEA Fertilizers. (2008). Retrieved December 6, 2008, from http://www.mea.co.ke Minjingu Mines & Fertilizer Limited KELLOGG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT Authorized for use only by Luis Fabio dos Santos Castilho in Marketing at Universidade de Sao Paulo from Feb 24, 2015 to Jul 14, 2015. Ariga, J. E. (2006). Factors Driving the Growth in Fertilizer Consumption in Kenya, 1995–2000. Retrieved November 23, 2008, from MSU Agricultural, Food and Resources Economics, http://www.aec.msu.edu/fs2/Kenya/wp24.pdf Port, R. (n.d.). Some Local History of the Bungoma Area. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~port/kenyafriends/bung.hist.html Postigo, M. (2008, December). One Acre Fund Manager. (K. Nelson, Interviewer) Postigo, M Sode, S. (2007, Winter). Green Acres. Alumni News from Northwestern University, p. 46. The Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Industry. (1999, October). Fertilizer and Pesticides. 23, 2008, Yara. (2008). Retrieved December 6, 2008, from http://www.yara.com KELLOGG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT 17 Authorized for use only by Luis Fabio dos Santos Castilho in Marketing at Universidade de Sao Paulo from Feb 24, 2015 to Jul 14, 2015.