Africa-Press – Tanzania. OVER 20,000 smallholder farmers engaged in horticulture (mainly vegetables, fruits and spices) farming here are set to benefit from a project to improve the quantity and quality of their products.
This was revealed by Project Monitoring and Research Manager Ally Mbarouk when introducing it to officers from ‘Unguja West B District Local Administrative Council.
He said the €5 million project was funded by the European Union (EU) and targeted at least 21,000 small farmers in 50 shehias (lowest administrative divisions) on both Unguja and Pemba Islands.
Mr Mbarouk said: “We need to help the smallholder farmers engaged in horticulture improve production and quality. This four-year project is co-implemented by Tanzania Media Women Association (Tamwa), Community Forest Pemba (CFP) and the Dar es Salaam based People’s Development Forum (PDF).”
He said the main objective of the project was to contribute to unlocking the potential of Zanzibar smallholder farmers’ horticulture value chains to ensure the sustainable supply of high quality products to local, international markets.
Production of fruits, spices and vegetables plays a crucial role in the country’s anti-poverty strategy as it uplifts the lives of hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers, but quantity and quality remained a challenge.
He said smallholder farmers in nine districts, including four in Pemba Islands had been selected after consultation with the Ministry for Agriculture, Irrigation, Natural Resources and Livestock.
“Through this project we also hope to build a network between farmers and stakeholders in farming, improve quality and support the country’s national food security and nutrition programme,” he said.
Mr Mbarouk said the project also trained farmers on value addition and promoted organic farming and Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) would help advertise Zanzibar farm quality products abroad.
He said the project was also in response to President Hussein Ali Mwinyi’s initiative to promote small traders and entrepreneurship in the country.
Ms Nahla Abdulhalim Mohamed, a cross cutting issues officer at the Unguja North A Town Council, said: “It is a timely project to help farmers transform with the hope of increasing their incomes.”
Mr Makame Kitwana Makame – Deputy Director, Agriculture and Environment in Unguja Central District said the project would boost farming.
“Farmers have been producing crops of low quality, leading to difficulties in selling.”
He said prioritised spices in the project included vanilla, black pepper (pilipili manga), ginger (tangawizi) and red pepper (pilipili hoho).
