Community Engagement

One of SOBBA's guiding principles is "Improving the quality of life of its customers & clients". SOBBA ensures that it strives to promote community engagement and involvement in the our goals. It does not matter what crops or practices have been cultivated or used respectively in the regions that we operate; we strive to offer solutions and seeds to the farmers that will make significant impact and increase the livelihood of the community. SOBBA does not only invest financially in the communities that we operate in, SOBBA respects the local cultures, engage the community leaders, women, farmers and other demographic groups, and promotes sustainable and responsible economic development. SOBBA provides the following services to the local communities its operates in:

Provides Seeds and cuttings at reduced costs to farmers and other groups
Provides food for work programs during farming season
Hosts planting Kick-off & Post Harvest community meetings at all three locations to promote our activities and solicit the attention and participation of the community
Host Farmer Field Days at periodic intervals in which farmers farms are visited and they are trained on new seed varieties and new proven farming practices
Hosts monthly gatherings at the SOBBA store during which farming information and seeds are disseminated

SOBBA fervently believes that teaching communities effective farming and self-sustenance practices, is the best solution to developing a nation's food security

SOBBA is currently developing a structured technology transfer framework in the form of an Academy. The SOBBA Academy will involved the effective transfer of best practices and farming knowledge over an 8 months period conducted by SOBBA current agricultural consultants. We will be recruiting and training:

Farmers- who will be trained in the effective Pre & Post seed cultivation methods. The hope is to have a substantial outreach mechanism that will ensure that SOBBA and the contract farmer increases seed productivity.
Youth & youth farming groups-who will be encouraged to take more interest in farming and activities to support the community and their education. This group will also be provided additional financial and technical support and the aim is for them to promote farming to the youth population by being the farming leaders in their communities.
Women groups- Women are inherently good custodians of small businesss finances. Participants will be trained and provided materials to take their seed products to the market and help them transform their backyard markets to small seed traders and seed trading groups.
Tertiary educational institutions- SOBBA aims to partner with tertiary institutions and students in middle school will be introduced to farming technologies before they embark on their search for a career. SOBBA does presentations during career days to encourage interest into Agricultural programs and SOBBA's services