The Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network’s (FANRPAN) Agriculture to Nutrition (ATONU) project in Tanzania teamed up with WorldVeg Eastern and Southern Africa to enhance the vegetable production skills of staff members during a five-day Training of Trainers course from 13-17 March 2017 at the Center’s campus in Arusha.

ATONU has been in operation in Tanzania for a decade, mainly promoting raising local chickens in Singida, Songwe, Morogoro, Dodoma, Mbeya and Njombe. Considering the potential of vegetables to improve household nutrition and income, ATONU has decided to integrate vegetables into its poultry farming system.

Twenty seven field officers (63% women and 37% men) attended the training, which covered healthy seed and seedling production, integrated crop and pest management, postharvest handling, cooking, and organoleptic taste tests.

Upon graduation, each field officer received 700 vegetable seed kits containing seed of two amaranth varieties (‘Madiira 1’ & ‘Madiira 2’), African eggplant (‘DB3’), Ethiopian mustard (‘Rungwe’), cowpea (‘Ex Iseke’), okra (‘TZSMN 86’) and nightshade (‘Nduruma’) for them to use in establishing demonstration gardens in their respective project sites.

ATONU -Tanzania Director Ezekiel Goromela was highly impressed with the program and is looking forward to forging stronger links with the World Vegetable Center for the well-being of Tanzania’s farmers.

Story and photos: Hassan Mndiga