(3) Recently, in Tanzania, micro-finance services have been actively pursued by policy and rural development projects under the effect of international development policy movements. The Mbinga District Council has also promoted such services, and many farmer’s groups involved in research have emerged during the past few years. Therefore, this research focused on the relationship between micro-finance services and farmer’s group activities. The research was conducted for two months (16 Oct. 2004~16 Dec. 2004) in KitandaVillage, Mbinga District. The findings of this research are as follows.

1. Mbinga District is a major coffee producing area of the country. In Matengo society, although coffee brings in a large amount of income, this money is often stolen because of a lack of methods for secure savings, and is lost to begging as well. By contrast, regular daily income, known as ‘Hela ya haraka,’ for daily living needs such as salt and soap, is gained by cultivating food crops (maize, beans and vegetables) which can be quickly sold.
2. Full-fledged micro-finance services were introduced in Mbinga District in the early 1990s by development assistance agencies. People obtain loans in three ways. The first is from from SACCOs (Saving and Credit Cooperatives). People participate in SACCOs individually by making an investment in partnership capital. The second way is to belong to a farmer’s group which conducts activities that include informal savings. These farmer’s groups get loans from the district council or banks. The third way is by way of individuals obtaining loans from banks. These three methods do not impose regulations on the use of the money, but require collateral or guarantors. In the target village, an individual who has sufficient money joins a SACCO. I contacted 21 persons who were members of a SACCO, and found they had obtained loans twice on average so far, with the average amount of each loan being 73,780 Tanzania shilling. Of the loans, 61% were related to agricultural activities and 52% were invested for coffee and food crops cultivation in the forms of farm inputs and employment of part-time workers, respectively. People who could not afford to join SACCOs participated in farmer’s groups. When such a group gained a loan, it aimed to expand the funds by having all members cultivate food crops to earn hela ya haraka and to pay the profits to each member. The members aimed to invest the profits individually into coffee cultivation and food crops cultivation.