Posted on October, 24, 2018 at 11:54 am
More than 5,000 smallholder farmers in Kigoma Region’s Kakonko, Kibondo and Kasulu districts are benefiting from the agriculture component of an initiative by the United Nations in Tanzania known as Kigoma Joint Program-KJP, for short.
The initiative is part of a strategy empower host communities adversely affected by the influx of refugees from countries bordering Tanzania.
UN-Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) country representative Fred Kafeero said at the launch of meeting on markets for agricultural inputs held at Katahana village in Kibondo District that KJP’S trust on the agriculture “front” was on addressing bottlenecks impending growth in the maze, cassava, beans and livestock value chains in the project areas.
“The major pain is to address the challenges faced by farmers in the value chains of their farming activities with, special focus on maize, beans and cassava. We also look at ways through which could help them boost their production in livestock and related products,” he said.
FAO, the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and the International Trading Centre (ITC) jointly implement the agriculture component of the KJP in collaboration with the government of Tanzania with funding from the government of Norway.
Kafeero was upbeat that the programme would enhance the smallholder farmers’ capacity through training on good agricultural practices and by integrating climate smart agriculture through farmer’s field schools and the junior farmers field learning school approach.
“The farmers will also be provided with quality maize, beans seeds and cassava planting materials in order to boost their production,” he noted.
So far, 135 facilitators ( trainers of trainers) and 42 district and ward level stuff including group livestock community development and cooperatives officers have been trained and it is expected that the “ training of trainers” model will impact knowledge into skill to the 5,000-plus smallholder farmers targeted.
In remarks at the event Kibondo District Administrative Secretary Ayubu similar Sebabili commended the UN ‘family’ in Tanzania for devising and supporting the program, which he said brought “badly needed relief” to the host communities.
“It's good to see development partners joining hands to support our communities,” he said, adding: “ We have witnessed a range of activities around capacity building among trainer farmers and today we are witnessing the launch of a market meant to be to enable farmers to see timely access to quality seeds, planting materials and fertilizers in time”.
Sebabili said besides the impact of the influx of refugees in their areas, the host communities were faced with daunting challenges including making do with poor agricultural practices, unreliable supply of quality seeds and planting materials, and ravages of climate change.
“We sincerely see hope of these challenges being addressed during this program. As host government authorities, we will extend as much support to ensure that the targeted objectives are realized,” he said.
KJP is an area busy cross-sectional UN joint program geared at improving human security in Kigoma Region. It builds upon, and expands on already ongoing UN development interventions in the region.
A total of 16 UN agencies are cooperating in overseeing the implementation of projects under six themes: sustainable energy and environment; youth and women’s economic empowerment; violence against women and children; education with special focus on girls and adolescence girls; water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); and agriculture with special focus on establishment of local markets.
Source: IPP Media