Enterprise partners, PAN Ethiopia and MNS have signed a memorandum of understanding with the aim of customizing contract farming model implementation in SNNPR.  The signed MOU defines and formalizes the relationship between the parties and sets out their roles and responsibilities within the partnership to implement the intended activities. The MoU was signed by Tewodros Belachew,  on behalf of EP, Mohammed Nurhusen, Director of MNS and Dr Tadesse Amera, General Manager of PAN In the presence of officials and directors from each organization. Under the terms of this agreement, Enterprise Partners will provide financial and expert support to successfully implement the customized contract farming. Other objective includes: Facilitating meetings and field visits for National Advisory Group (NAG) and supervise monitoring and results in measurement task required during the implementation of the customized contract farming. In addition, EP will conduct quality assurance and milestone delivery check during the implementation of contract farming.

On the other hand, PAN will serve as a strategic service provider with EP to provide technical service for the implementation of contract farming under the supervision of MNS. In addition, PAN will  Facilitate the contract signing between MNS Manufacturing and Primary Farmers’ Cooperative, Provide Good Agronomic Practices (GAP) training for the selected farmers and Provide critical capacity building and project management training primarily to cotton producers. MNS will oversee the overall project and milestone delivery provided by PAN, facilitate aggregation points for seed cotton storage places for the cooperatives, swift delivery and execute timely payments to contracted organic farmers. Furthermore, MNS will purchase the organic seed cotton from farmers based on the price set on the contract agreement and work closely with EIIDE, NAG, ZSC and other relevant stakeholders to facilitate output and input finance for cooperatives to avail quality inputs and aggregate the seed cotton in a timely manner.