Feed the Future Tanzania Mboga na Matunda Monthly Update: March 2018

The purpose of FTFT-MnM is to increase the competitiveness and inclusiveness of the horticulture subsector while improving the nutritional status of Tanzanians. This will be achieved by scaling improved technologies and practices that lead to increased productivity of smallholders, including large numbers of women and youth, in targeted commodities. The activity encourages women and the youth to engage in and effectively capitalize upon viable opportunities available in the horticultural value chain. FTFT-MnM provides technical assistance and knowledge, as well as access to productive resources, time-saving technologies, farming business management, and financial oversight. To-date, the FTFT-MnM activity's engagement has benefited 106,914 women across the different areas of implementation in Tanzania. Training is a key component of the FTFT-MnM activity, with a focus on building and strengthening the capacity of players along the horticultural value chain. Farmers, dealers, prospective buyers of horticultural crops, horticultural food processors, and other service providers are targeted in trainings. For example, up until the end of March this year, the activity had trained 6,596 individuals in different operational areas. In March 2018, the activity continued its capacity building trainings for extension specialists from both the government and the private sector in Zanzibar. The training courses were done through boot camps, which provided participants with a firm foundation in good agricultural practices, seedling production, drip irrigation, plant nutrition, integrated pest management, correct use of pesticides, and farming as a business. A total of 74 extension officers attended the training sessions. The FTFT-MnM activity also organized a training of trainers for community health volunteers in Unguja and Pemba across the Zanzibar Channel. This was a collaborative training effort between FTFT-MnM and the Save the Children Fund, which aimed to impart appropriate nutritious horticultural knowledge to community health workers with the primary objective of improving the nutritional status of local communities. A total of 181 nutrition specialists attended the training. The activity also organized the first farmers' field day on March 15, staged in the tomatoes demonstration plot in the village of Mwakaganga in Mbarali District. The main objective of this first field day was to showcase farmer's successes in the adoption of good agricultural practices (GAPs), and the technologies that were successfully adopted following the activity's intervention in the area. A total of 150 interested parties attended the event, where a discussion platform was set up to enable the participants to learn new ideas and solutions to production, marketing, inclusiveness, and access to financing and other resources.