FOSTAL: A football club with an agriculture habit

How one rural Timorese football team took went from a $0.25 investment to winning $22,000 grants

September 11, 2020

João Ribeiro dos Santos and FOSTAL have shown the benefits of organic agriculture for communities and sustainability. Photo: UNDP


 by Silvia de Araujo

In 2015, João Ribeiro dos Santos and his football team represented the rural community of Hera - just east of Dili - in every tournament. Most of them were unemployed or university students. Despite their commitment football provided few ways to generate income.

“One afternoon, after a football match we had a meeting to find ways of getting some income to sustain our activities. We had resources around us such as the empty land and water, but we did not know how to utilize it. The team collected 25 cents from each person to invest in vegetable seeds and tools to plant vegetables.”

Dos Santos became the coordinator of the resulting youth agriculture group named FOSTAL (Foinsa’e Tali-Laran) comprised of three female and seven male youth farmers However, he saw that the Hera farming community was often using chemical fertilizers on their crops, which can negatively impact people’s health and the soil.

FOSTAL came up with an idea to start a Hera youth group for organic crop production by introducing organic agriculture methods to youth groups and community. The group has been successful in organizing youth participation and investment in organic agriculture.

In 2016, a social business camp provided by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Becora Youth Center, enabled FOSTAL to invest more in agribusiness. “We started to build a team … producing various crops such as eggplants, water spinach, bitter gourd, tomatoes, papaya, watermelon, chili, lemongrass, and mustard,” said dos Santos.

In 2017 the group has expanded its partnership with USAID’s Project Avansa Agriculture and received materials for agricultural production as well as technical support.

In 2019, FOSTAL’s partnership with the Becora Youth Centre and saw them receive seed funding from the Secretary of State for Youth and Sport under a youth agribusiness and forestry program.

“Through agriculture my family and I can eat and earn money to sustain our lives ... We have worked very hard to produce an average of six tons per year distributed to the local community, the small vendors and local market…,” said do Santos.

FOSTAL then progressed to promoting a traditional food carry bags called bote, produced by the FOSTAL women’s group to replace the single-use plastic bags used during distribution and selling to households. As of August 2020 crop production had increased by six tons compared to last year, and it is estimated to increase to 10 tons by December 2020.

Recently, FOSTAL’s distribution expanded even further into major supermarkets in the capital Dili through a Business Networking and Matchmaking Event supported by Knua Juventude Fila Liman (KJFL) - the UNDP youth entrepreneurship hub. “Now, our products now being distributed to major supermarkets in Dili such as, Leader, Kmanek, and Centro Supermarkets as well as small vendors and local markets,” said dos Santos

KJFL also hosted FOSTAL at a three-day social business camp, followed by six months of business incubation support from January – June 2020. However, due to the COVID-19, the period was extended to August. KNUA has helped FOSTAL link with other stakeholders including the Ministry of Agriculture as well as helping map out FOSTAL’s supply chain and complete their business registration through the Public Institute for Business Registration, Verification and Services (SERVE).

“KJFL provided a very good mentorship program which helped our business development as well as technical support and linking us with donors. On the 9th of September we were selected from 86 applicants to receive $22,000 from New Zealand’s ‘Aihan Diak Ba Moris Diak’ Programme.

This is a tremendous achievement for us given that our nascent enterprise has to compete with well-established businesses with decades of experience.”

If you are an interested angel investor or interested stakeholders you can contact us on +670 75862544 or email ribeiro.dossantosjoao11@gmail.com.