Pius Paulini (left in a green T-shirt) is a 52 years old farmer in Towelo village, Morogoro. He is married with 4 children.

He started farming in the 80s doing traditional farming and grew crops like maize, beans, carrots and cabbages. Later-on, he applied synthetic fertilizers and agrochemicals, he said he incurred high cost and the returns were not promising in the end the soil was depleted, just like many of the fields which farmers abandoned.

In 2010, he attended the first SAT training and he started practicing agroecology immediately, he made terraces and used compost in his farm, he also planted beneficial trees. He conducted a market research and sells his vegetables to Morogoro town, Dar es Salaam and Mwanza, he is an active member of the saving and lending network as well as a farmer trainer. He has been able to train more than 500 farmers in Morogoro and Tanga on Sustainable Land Management.

``Through practicing agroecology, I was able to regenerate my land. On my terraced fields which are well composted I was able to get more 1,000 kilos of Carrots which I sold to Mwanza, the money I got used it to buy a motorcycle for my son Moses to start a motorcycle taxi business. My other children are still in school and I manage to pay fees for them in a private English school. In the past people saw me as a poor man with nothing but my life changed and now they ask me to train and represent them`` said Pius. He added ``I am finalizing my family house, a 4 bedrooms, self-contained with a sitting room and kitchen``.

Being in the group I benefit a lot with the social capital, we work together and help each other in difficult tasks for example making terraces and bringing our products to the market. In the group we also save together and lend each other money for investment and use.