Success Stories from Our Members in the field

Building Self-Sufficiency among Moldovan Farmers, Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs

The promise of transforming state-controlled industries into free-market dynamos following the disintegration of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s has been elusive for many former East Bloc nations. In Moldova, for example, some farm communities were unable to keep pace with the changes due to a lack of basic business skills and resources.

The modernization gap was particularly wide in the small Moldovan farming community of Orhei, at least until the American nongovernmental organization Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs began sponsoring farm stores that provided supplies, equipment access and expertise to farmers.

In Orhei, local entrepreneur Valentin Marchetan developed a business plan and sought help from CNFA in building a store that would integrate the community into the market economy. CNFA was able to put together $100,000 in financing by combining funds from local businesses and a Moldovan nonprofit organization, with assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

With seeds fertilizers and pesticides from USAID, farm equipment from local Moldovan partners and an agronomist to advise customers, the Agro-Market farms store opened Oct. 20, 2000.

In its first year of operation, the farm store sold $58,000 worth of goods and services to almost 4,000 clients. The store has since become a profitable, sustainable enterprise that has reinvigorated the farming community and connected farmers to larger markets. Encouraged by the store's success, Marchetan is opening three more branches in Orhei province.

By helping to build a vigorous private sector in one corner of the former Soviet Union, CNFA not only supports self-sufficiency and economic opportunity - it also provides people with basic tools to build a secure future.