USAID-TAPP Monthly Bulletin #27

in conjunction with the Tanzania Horticultural Association (TAHA). The program aims to increase smallholder farmer incomes through enhanced productivity, crop diversification, and improved market access. TAPP is part of the Feed the Future initiative, a global hunger and food security program launched by the US government to break the cycle of hunger and poverty in the developing world. The program focuses on the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor (SAGCOT), a region identified by the Tanzanian government as conducive for agricultural growth. TAPP is working with local partners and the Government of Tanzania to concentrate efforts on selected crops and regions, particularly SAGCOT, to help transform the country's food security. TAPP uses field visits as a strategy to encourage smallholder farmers to adopt good agricultural practices (GAPs) and technologies being utilized successfully by other program beneficiaries. Successful farms become working classrooms for new trainees, and farmer leaders serve as peer educators. For instance, members of the Oitera Pre-Rural Cooperative Society in the Arusha region participated in a field visit, witnessing the use of GAPs on plots similar to their own, applied by farmers in similar circumstances. The program has inspired individual members of two different groups to volunteer their homes as sites for the establishment of demonstration plots. Members of Mbughuni Farmers Group and Mwanzo Mwema Vegetables Growers were trained on live barrier planting, the installation and maintenance of drip irrigation systems, and the advantages of fertigation. These farmers expect to earn a profit of at least 6.6 million Tanzanian Shillings (roughly US $4,100) from the sale of their produce in local markets. TAPP collaborates with local agribusinesses to increase the scope and sustainability of its impact. A new partnership with Nsombo Agro Development Group aims to strengthen the supply chain of fresh fruit to the Dar es Salaam markets from the Rufigi and Mkuranga Districts in the Coastal Region. With assistance from TAPP, Nsombo will expand its operation to develop an outgrower program, providing direct agricultural extension support to farmers and emphasizing the growing of good varieties of pineapples in the Coastal Region. In total, with TAPP assistance, 1,500 smallholder farmers will be integrated into this commercial supply chain, applying good agricultural practices to increase yields by 75-100% on more than 500 hectares of land. These improvements will result in $800,000 in new sales by smallholder farmers in Tanzania's Coastal Region.