Catholic Relief Services (CRS) was founded in 1943 by the Catholic Bishops of the United States to serve World War II survivors in Europe. Since then, the organization has expanded to reach more than 120 million people in more than 100 countries on five continents including Africa. To help increase the capacity of their staff in food value chains and further develop CRS’ strategy in value chain programming, a group of 9 CRS staff visited the World Vegetable Center in Tanzania on 21 August 2017 as part of a five-day “Horticultural Learning Journey”.

Thomas Dubois, WorldVeg Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, welcomed the visitors and stressed the importance of working with communities to promote consumption of more and diverse vegetables, such as nutrient-dense traditional vegetables. “Vegetables grow rapidly and offer a real-time opportunity for farmers to make quick money,” he said. “About 65 percent of vegetables consumed in Tanzania have been developed from germplasm collected and distributed by WorldVeg.”

In its efforts to increase support for vulnerable youth, CRS is collaborating with WorldVeg to help young participants from the VINESA (Improving Income and Nutrition in Eastern and Southern Africa by Enhancing Vegetable-based Farming and Food Systems in Peri-urban Corridors) project grow and market their vegetables collectively. This new model, called the Youth Vegetable Business Hub, will be piloted in Arumeru District, Arusha to assist young people in increasing the sustainability and profitability of their farming activities at group and community levels.  The approach will help to scale out successive outcomes from the VINESA project by introducing a combined model that will provide education to farmers, promote collective marketing to strengthen group business relationships, and encourage saving and credit through a Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC) approach.

During their learning journey participants visited the WorldVeg Genebank, crop plots for breeding and seed increase, and the Postharvest Training and Services Center.  They then met with two VINESA farmer groups in Arumeru District to discuss the opportunities and challenges of vegetable farming. The young farmers cited the lack of a shared facility to sort, grade and pack their vegetables; the high cost of transporting vegetables to markets; and delay in getting their payments from contract companies. They hope the new CRS-financed approach will help them to resolve these issues.

The farm visits provided CRS participants with a field-based learning platform for action and reflection. During the five-day event, the participants visited other horticultural farms and agro-processing facilities, and held interviews with farmer organizations, government officials, private sector companies and other organizations engaged in horticultural value chains in the region.

Story and photos: John Macharia