portrait placeholder
Co-founder · Novi Sad
Founder name TBC
Strategy, fundraising, and Novi Sad operations.
Manna is a young foundation with a clear mission: deliver the proven four-service bundle for smallholder farmers — seed, training, finance, market access — to one region of one country at a time, done properly, measured honestly.
Manna is the old name for sustenance that arrives in a hard place at the moment it is needed — enough to carry people through, given when there was no other way.
We borrow the idea, not the literal sense. We don’t hand out food. We deliver the few things a farming family needs in the season they need them — seed, training, finance, a route to market — so the next harvest, and every one after, is their own. We don’t belabour it. The point is the timing.
— Provision · Timing · Independence
Our most important partner is academic. A young foundation can be earnest about method without being rigorous about it; a research faculty cannot. This partnership is what allows Manna’s pilot to be measured, not estimated.
Memorandum of Understanding · signed December 2025 · Novi Sad
MoU signed November 2025 covering the cooperative-led recruitment of the 2026 cohort.
Letters of intent in place; cohort recruitment opens January 2026.
Foundation registration completed in Novi Sad and Dar es Salaam. Founding directors confirmed.
After scoping visits to three candidate regions in central Tanzania, Singida is selected for the first pilot.
Village cooperatives in Singida, Manyoni, and Iramba commit to host the first cohort. Regional government MoU signed.
Memorandum of Understanding signed with the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Novi Sad — covering measurement, advisory, and independent audit.
12 field officer positions advertised in Singida. Baseline household survey begins in February.
First cohort plants. Input deliveries through three village depots. Training cadence begins.
Crop-cut sampling conducted jointly by UNS and Tanzanian agronomy staff. Repayment cycle opens.
Independent audit published. Decision on year-two scope (Tanzania expansion or candidate-country entry) follows.
Manna is being built by a small founding team across Novi Sad and Dar es Salaam, supported by academic advisors from the Faculty of Agriculture. Final names and bios will be published as roles are confirmed.
Strategy, fundraising, and Novi Sad operations.
In-country operations, cooperative relations, government affairs.
Faculty of Agriculture. Heads measurement, agronomy advisory, and the year-one audit.
Tanzania-based; supervises the field-officer cohort and depot operations.
Board composition will be finalised and published with names in Q1 2026.
The audit, the measurement, and the field-officer salaries are funded by donors. Repayments will recycle into year two. Year one is the one that needs you.