Improved vegetable varieties and production practices in Tanzania

The World Vegetable Center together with HORTI Tengeru under the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded programme ‘Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING)’ introduces improved vegetable varieties and agronomic practices to smallholder farmers to increase the number of vegetable crops available for home consumption, reduce vegetable waste and spoilage, and enrich the diversity of vegetables grown in home gardens and on farms. The project aims to scale out improved vegetable varieties and practices that have been trialled on stations and farms and selected by pilot farmers using a participatory research approach.

The Problem

The 2014 Tanzania National Nutrition Survey indicates that 340,000 children under the age of 5 years are moderately acutely malnourished and a further 105,000 severely acutely malnourished, which could lead to serious and life-long repercussions. Supplementation programmes are being implemented nation-wide due to chronically low availability and affordability of vitamin A-rich foods, but these are proving insufficient - failing to reach 28% of children aged between 6 months and 5 years and compromising their ability to grow and learn. 

In rice-producing districts such as the Kilombero District of Tanzania, daily diets consist mainly of rice and fish, while vegetable consumption is very limited. Many farmers are concentrating on growing crops such as maize, rice and tomatoes, which has led to the decline of previous common knowledge about how to grow, prepare, preserve and cook traditional vegetables. Although farmers are aware that traditional vegetables in comparison to introduced cash crops are often more resistant to pests and diseases, easier and faster to grow, and more nutritious than globally recognized vegetables, they currently only have access to low-yielding varieties of local seed. Meanwhile, private seed companies generally focus on improvement of non-traditional vegetable cash crops such as tomato, sweet pepper or onions. Investment in nutritious and high-yielding traditional vegetables is required to increase the diversity of smallholder farmers’ production and diets. Including leafy greens such as amaranth and African nightshade that offer higher levels of vitamin A as well as iron and other important micronutrients may assist in combating currently low Vitamin A intake and chronically high rates of malnutrition in Tanzanian children. 

Agrobiodiversity

The focus of the Africa RISING project is to improve both production diversity and dietary diversity; by introducing vegetables into production systems, and making vegetables available for home consumption in smallholder households. The project introduces varieties of traditional vegetable crops that were almost forgotten in parts of Tanzania, and supports the continued consumption of already popular nutritious vegetables so farmers and markets can better cope with increasing demand. Traditional vegetable varieties have been inter-bred to become high-yielding, more nutritious and drought tolerant. Seed packages containing improved varieties of African eggplant (Solanum aethiopicum), African nightshade (Solanum nigrum), amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) and jute mallow (Corchorus olitorius L.) are distributed to smallholder farmers to allow them to harvest more vegetables, over a longer period of time, and in drier conditions. The varieties are “open pollinated”, that is, they can be reproduced by farmers up to 6 times and can therefore be easily shared among other farmers. Jute mallow in contrast is a vegetable crop that has not been domesticated in Tanzania before. It has been introduced by the project as it can be dried and the powder used to enrich soups in the dry season when fresh vegetables are rare.       

The approach

Working with 25 villages located in 4 different regions of Tanzania, project activities start with a community needs assessment followed by an intensive sensitization meeting. The sensitization meeting aims to establish an information exchange between farmers and the project team. Both sides discuss the current crops cultivated on farms, the crops consumed by households and the market options farmers see for their produce. The sensitization activities are followed by a session on group governance and group dynamics to prepare all participants for a season-long training-of-trainers (ToT) module. The project team chose to combine the ToT module, with farmer-to-farmer extension and field days to build farmer capacity and skill acquisition (see Figure 1). Farmer trainers are trained on different practices, including nursery management, transplanting, soil preparation, integrated pest management practices, post-harvest handling and food preparation. Training sessions take place once a month within the season-long production training on “mother” demonstration plots. While establishing the demonstration plots together with the farmer trainers, the latter are given a seed kit to set up a “baby” trial in their own home gardens, parallel to the demonstration plot activities. The farmer trainers are further encouraged to invite 3-5 other farmers from their village to participate in an introductory training session on the mother demonstration plots. Those secondary beneficiaries receive a seed kit as well, but are trained by the farmer trainers, who establish their own home gardens based on the knowledge and skills gained during the ToT module. The home gardens established by the participants of the farmer-to-farmer trainings are called “grandbaby” trials. Field days are conducted to disseminate the information and technology beyond pilot village boarders. Farmer-to-farmer trainers help to internalize the new technologies in the village community, while inviting village extension officers and other NGO field agents to attend the ToT module internalizes the new technologies in the knowledge institutions active across a larger area not covered by the pilot villages.

Figure 1: Capacity building approach

The impact

In the 2 years since project inception, the Africa RISING programme has raised awareness, strengthened capacity and encouraged sharing of seed and traditional knowledge:

  • Almost 800 lead farmers, village extension officers and NGO extension workers trained to disseminate improved vegetable varieties and production practices among smallholder vegetable producers. 
  • More than 2,000 seed kits containing amaranth, African nightshade, African eggplant, jute mallow, and cow pea distributed, as well as two high-yielding tomato varieties as cash crops. 
  • Training participants adopted the varieties, and started to reproduce them and spread the seed among family members, neighbors and other farmers beyond village borders.
  • Non-participants who were aware of the improved varieties also began reproducing and sharing seed.  
  • Based on a close collaboration with Catholic Relief Services, field agents from another 25 villages were trained and provided with seed kits to ensure further dissemination. 
  • The project attracted the interest of local private seed companies, who started to multiply traditional vegetable varieties and will soon deliver quality seed to input dealers in the pilot regions.

Key challenges

Gender equality

The project team observed lower participation of female farmers compared to male farmers in the training groups in some pilot villages during the first year of project implementation (2014/15). In these villages, female farmers constituted only 30-40% of the group participants, which prompted the project to put greater emphasis on gender. The project team strongly encouraged the village extension officers and the chairmen of the training groups to ensure that 50% of the training participants were women farmers. In many villages, the project team also encouraged women to become training group leaders, which turned out to be very successful. In general, the stronger focus of the project team on integrating female farmers led to favorable results. The participation of female farmers in the training groups of the second project year was on average above 50%, much higher than in the first year. Despite this success, the project team will not seek to reach an even higher participation of women for the following reasons: 

I) The project concentrates on a) the production of vegetable cash crops for local and regional markets, which is still mainly a male-driven business, and on b) the consumption of traditional vegetables to increase the diversity of food crops available for household consumption—mainly under female management. To reach these two goals, equal participation of men and women in both areas would be necessary. 

II) In most cases, men are still the owners of the land. To increase the production area for traditional vegetables in existing farm households, men need to be informed about the marketability and the nutritional value of vegetable crops. 

The training sessions do however include information on nutrition, the nutrition content of different vegetable crops, vegetable preservation, and food preparation that is also directed to male household heads to improve their nutrition knowledge and appreciate the changes that need to occur in household diets. 

Markets

Marketing channels used by smallholder farmers for traditional and non-traditional vegetables are another challenge. The project baseline survey has indicated that the value chains for traditional vegetables are very short. For instance, leafy vegetables are collected at the farm gate and sold by traders in fresh markets in the nearest larger city. In comparison to farmers, traders are very well organized and can benefit more from the final consumer price, which is twice or even three times higher than the farm-gate price the farmers currently receive. Collective action and organization among farmers would enable them to benefit more from the final consumer price and may encourage them to grow more improved vegetable varieties. The project has started to provide market access training for farmers and facilitate meetings with potential buyers to establish and strengthen linkages between farmer groups, traders and buyers.

Lessons learned

  • The improved vegetable varieties included in the seed kits need to be adjusted according to the local demand to ensure farmer adoption of these new crops. This can be achieved through the sensitization meetings, where the participatory farmer approach allows for the discussion of the available vegetables and decision about which varieties are best to include.
  • Providing nutritional information during the training particularly encouraged women to participate. Participants were eager to learn about which crops were specifically nutritious and the importance of these vegetables for their well-being and the well-being of their children.
  • Farmers were impressed by the purity and the high germination rate of the seed provided by the World Vegetable Center, and were also trained on how to reproduce their own seed. Working with instead of against local seed distribution companies strengthened local economies and increased the achievable spread of quality seed and support for these vegetables beyond the project pilot sites.
  • Because the project is limited in its outreach, it was important to engage public extension service officers and NGO extension staff early during project implementation. The latter are now multipliers of the skills and knowledge disseminated during the ToT modules. 

More information

Email: andreas.gramzow@worldveg.org