Cultivating crops in Tanzania
Concern Worldwide is helping farmers in west Tanzania to greatly improve the profit from their harvests. The extra cash has enabled more children in the area to receive an education.
Some of the farmers tried making a profit from crops such as cotton but the return was too low. So, one of our partners introduced sunflowers to the region in 2009, which has made a huge difference.
In west Tanzania, families have on average six children, so access to food is a priority. There is also a risk that children may not be able to go to school.
Leonia Maliatabu, 45, said:
We all need the money. We will spend it on school fees, healthcare, improving our houses, other household items and our farming.
Effective results
Because the sunflower crop matures early, it is cheaper to grow. It only needs to be weeded once before harvesting and it doesn’t need fertiliser. Sunflower seeds can be used to make oil to cook with or to sell and the remainder can be fed to livestock.
Saidi Kamanango, 64, cultivated a quarter of an acre and harvested 70kg of seeds. He got 20 litres of oil and sold 15. He told me:
It was fortunate that we had the money because my wife was very ill. We had to spend all of the money from the oil on this. Thankfully now she is better.
Milling machine
Concern’s partner is also going to provide the farmers with a new milling machine. This new model is automatic and can process up to 1.5 tonnes of seeds in one day. It will be housed in Kazulamimba village, and farmers from other villages will transport their seeds to the machine.
Some farmers have formed groups so they can contribute to the machine’s maintenance. They have also started to build a house for the machine.
Hazina Kitentia, a 42-year old female farmer, said:
When the machine comes we expect our family income will increase and we can have more control of our future.
Comments
As matter of interest. How much will be the cost of the milling machine?
Hi, Isla is lookking into this; she'll respond next week.
Thanks,
Níall
Hi, Thanks so much for your question. Sorry it’s taken me a little while to respond. I thought you would like to see a comparison of the manual milling machine previously supplied to the sunflower farmers and the automatic one: Type Approximate cost Capacity per day Manual €65 4 litres of oil / 20kg seeds Automatic €3,900 1000 litres of oil / 3–4.5 tonnes seeds We introduced the manual ones first so that the farmers could get used to the technology. As you can see there is a dramatic increase in cost and capacity so there’s only going to be one machine shared between a number of villages. The farmers are ready to use the automatic one, and are currently building a shelter for it to be housed. One litre of oil sells for 3,500 TSH, which is €1.75. And the demand for edible oil is increasing, which gives the growers a good market. Pros and cons of the machines: Whilst the manual machine is cheap with low maintenance costs, and needs little skills to operate; it can only produce a small amount of oil. It takes a lot of energy to operate it, and this is a challenge for some members of society – women, elderly, and people with chronic illnesses. The automatic machine reduces this burden and the outputs are enormous. The automatic machine needs cash for smooth running which will require a focus on business and income generation. The people selected to manage the machine aren’t the poorest people in the village, who Concern aims to support. Research has shown that groups of entrepreneurs will operate business well (the machine) because they will benefit and because they tend to have the skills and some education. The poorest people and wider community will benefit by being able to process their seeds efficiently, which will give them access to cash or cheap cooking oil (critical for dietary diversity). They will pay a small amount, perhaps they will give some of their oil as payment. This is part of Concern Tanzania’s ‘value chain’ approach – we are trying to make the machines as sustainable as possible, and take growers up the value chain so that they actually make money from processing their product. I hope this is of interest to you. Isla
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