Mary Rimoy, Lushoto District Horticulture Office, demonstrates grading requirements for vegetables meant for different markets outside the Malindi Collection Center.

Mary Rimoy, Horticulture Officer for Lushoto District, guided the visitors to the Malindi Collection Center, where different vegetables from four farmers’ groups in the district are received, sorted, washed, graded, weighed and packed depending on the requirements of consumers and customers. More than 60 different types of vegetables including leeks, parsley, celery, beets, green pepper, broccoli, baby corn, tomatoes, lettuce, and snow peas are grown on the steep, fertile mountainous slopes in the district. Operations at the collection center are supervised by a Quality Assurance and Marketing Committee. The four farmers’ groups (Malindi, Lushoto, Soni and Boheloe) have formed an umbrella association called the Usambara Lishe Trust. Established in 1996 by 16 farmers, the trust now helps more than 250 farmers supply vegetables to meet market demand in terms of quantity, quality and time.

How did the trust manage to grow rapidly from its humble beginnings to its current state? “It calls for members to be reliable, trustworthy and committed suppliers,” said Usambara Lishe Trust Chairman Rajabu Mgonja. “Without these attributes and a clear communication between farmers, it would have been impossible for us to supply vegetables that meet demands of consumers and customers for quantity and quality over the years.” Effective recordkeeping also ensures that individual farmers receive returns due to them, and if need be, produce can be traced from the market back to the farmer.

MAYOVEGA farmers visited the Upendo Women’s Group. Founded in 2010 by nine women, today the group has invested over 1.5 million Tanzanian shillings (about US$ 1,000) in their two net houses to produce tomatoes and sweet papers. Members showed the trainees how to stake tomatoes and apply fertilizers to crops through drip irrigation pipes. MAYOVEGA members were challenged by this example to revitalize an unutilized net house in Maweni village; communities around Maweni are endowed with adequate water and fertile soil, which could be used to produce vegetables for high value markets in Arusha and beyond.

Muhidin Rajabu in Lushoto District has grown snow peas since 2006. The MAYOVEGA team was amazed by Rajabu’s farm for its field sanitation, crop quality and amount of money (US$ 2,250) it generated last season from a plot measuring only 22 m x 8 m. This convinced MAYOVEGA members that intensification of vegetable farming to meet high market standards is a sure source of employment and income. A visit to a collection center, pack house and cold rooms for green peas demonstrated how vegetable farmers in Lushoto District work together to meet the demand from export markets. “Our company is willing to work with small farmers to improve their living standard by facilitating them to produce high quality produce and get access to premium markets,” said Samwel Nassari, an agronomist with Home Veg, a company that exports horticultural crops to Europe. Home Veg is currently exporting peas from Lushoto and Arusha and has plans to start working on tomato as well.

Farmers are astounded to discover the amount of money Mr. Rajabu makes from a small plot of snow peas for export.

The three-day field trip was a real eye-opener for the MAYOVEGA team. “A third revolution in Maweni village is coming,” said AVRDC’s Hassan Mndiga, one of the VINESA project staff who accompanied the young farmers on the tour. “This move toward growing high value vegetables for premium markets is inevitable. The first revolution occurred when many Maweni farmers shifted from growing sugar cane to vegetables, and the second happened when area farmers began wide-scale production of vegetable seeds for seed companies.” Agatha Aloyce, VINESA Country Coordinator for Tanzania, reminded MAYOVEGA members about the urgency of passing the knowledge and skills they have acquired to peer farmers in their community. This way many farmers can become preferred suppliers for high value markets. John Macharia, VINESA Project Manager, told the group that “success will only come with good organization, attention to quality, cooperation among farmers, and starting with markets in mind.” He inspired MAYOVEGA to start by believing in themselves; if they worked hard, their association could one day become an umbrella organization for future groups of farmers to be trained by VINESA.