Farmers’ Associations Need Help for Successful Marketing

New Thinking in Tanzania for Market Access

Marketing help for ginger growers in Same District, Tanzania

In Arumeru the AMSDP core group have been helping with market training for Umwale farmers’ group. Before the training the farmers were selling as individuals and getting low prices; now they sell as whole group. We have helped them to find a good market by: visiting markets in Dar Es Salaam; using mobiles to get market information; attending Agricultural shows to advertise their products and visits to other AMSDP groups to learn from their experience.

Between us we have 250,000 trees, giving about 120 kilos per tree per year. With the extra members in our group we could have as many as 500,000 trees producing 60,000 tons of oranges a year. 30 Ush per kilo is the farm gate price and the middlemen offer 20 Ush per kilo, but if we broker deals with big companies we can double the price; a potential gross income of 3,600million Tsh which is just over two million US dollars!

The Same Beekeepers’ Association “SABEA” in Same district in the Northern part of Tanzania, has been supported by VECO, ELCT, SNV, FaidaMali and their partners to make good progress in the production of good quality honey. In this area the acacia trees add a distinctive flavour to the honey.

In the FFS we are working towards becoming a business unit supporting better market links for our members. We are expanding our current work in market research and carrying out pre-season planning and enterprise selection for members. We will do more work in ensuring quality controls and negotiating with potential buyers as well as organising storage and transport for the products of our members.

Thirty percent of the loss in leather quality occurs when cutting away the hide from the carcass. To overcome knife damage UNIDO developed a simple machine for pulling off the hide: the SFF machine. The machine is simple in design, manually operated and ideal in even the most rural situation. It is affordable and can be constructed in local workshops.

There are exciting plans for the KENFAP office in Nyeri. The idea is to have an internet café in the KENFAP office for farmers to use. Lucy Mwangi. is giving training to farmers in the use of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and of the Internet for Email and to access useful websites. The Nyeri Branch intends to organise marketing groups for particular crops and to act as a broker to negotiate a price for a farmer group.

During the past three to four years there has been little rain in Hai. Despite this in Hai farmers have been able to increase their income by growing mushrooms. The farmers grow Oyster mushrooms inside their houses in bags either hung from the ceiling or on racks. Growing mushrooms has not reduced the production of other crops because anyone can grow them in an extra room at home.

After the Agricultural Marketing Systems Development Programme’s assessment workshop in Morogoro in March 2006, the Hai District Core Group decided to form an organisation owned by farmers to help with marketing - a rural service network. They formed a task force to develop the initial ideas; seven selected members worked for three months and came up with a draft of constitution.

Getting Organized for Exporting Vegetables: The Mumuka Horticulture Group Story

Grace Ngambi says that the first LLL training has had an effect in Nyeri; it has assisted the KENFAP office to start this youth group and to give them Internet training . Karurumo horticultural and livestock farmers’ youth group was started in 2005 under the National Agricultural and Livestock Extension programme.

Plans for a Rural Service Company: The Story of Babati District, Tanzania

After the Morogoro workshop in April 2006, the Babati Core Group decided that their priority is to start up a Rural Service Company (RSC) on commercial basis offering services for market information and brokering services. Babati want to be able to start the RSC and have it running and fully sustainable before AMSDP support is pulled out in 2009.

Meeting the Marketing Challenge: Sweet potatoes in Kakamega Story

To help us communicate with the farmers five mobile phones are operational in the area and we are expecting to have some bikes later in the year so that will allow the officers to meet the farmers more easily. The farmers have been growing sweet potatoes as a cash crop; we needed to pack and take these to market.

AMSDP Nkasi District Core Group in Tanzania assisted fisherfolk improve the processing of their dried sardines and thus getting a better price and bigger market for their product.

Our banana farmers’ association started in 2003. One of the extension workers had been to Tanzania to an area where they are making banana wine. When he came back he thought that it was worth starting a similar project in this area where we grow a lot of ‘Matoke’. There are 40 members in the association. We want to look at markets for our wine, not just local markets but external markets even beyond Kampala.

We have an office and trading centre in Bushenyi, a permanent building which was a contribution from the aid development for farmers and cost us not less than 20 million shillings. The honey we produce is marketed as Bushenyi honey, produced by Connoisseurs’ Honey and each year at the annual general meeting we review the prices of all the products related to beekeeping that we sell.

Organizing Small Holder Milk Production the BUDICU Union Story

There are twenty-two fully paid up societies based in three counties: Igara, Ruhinda and Sherma. Through these societies the Union receives milk from about 3,000 farmers. Our objectives are to promote the mutual economic interest of our members in accordance with the cooperative principles by engaging in local marketing and processing, farm input supply to members, and farmers’ credit facilities.

Gweri Dairy & Farmers Association in Soroti, Uganda markets its milk. In our association we normally pay what we call an annual fee where everyone contributes 25,000 Ush per year and from there we put that money in the bank and sit down as a committee and decide on a way forward. At times we use this money for drugs for our animals; if they are healthy they will produce more milk. We produce milk from local breeds and cross breeds.

Marketing the Challenge of Fruit Growers in Soroti

I am a farmer from Teso Tropical Fruit Growers in Soroti District. Our members started with the improvement of citrus and mango and we also have beekeeping as one of our enterprises. There are some seven hundred members in our citrus association. In the whole association we now have approximately 20,000 orange trees but our potential production is approximately 40,000 trees.

The advisory work of the TESO Private Sector Development Centre in Soroti, Uganda on keeping bees. The association is already registered and functioning well and producing honey. They are selling honey on the market within the locality of the Soroti distict and some parts of Mbale. But they do not have very many bee hives that can produce them the quantity that is needed for markets. The challenge is the finance needed to purchase the Langstroth beehive which is the improved beehive and the qualitative hive for commercial use.

Abuket Sweet Potato Association from Kyere in Soroti, Uganda processes and markets the sweet potatoes of its members. The association covers the five sub counties of Kyere, Kateta, Atiira, Katine and Arapai. It was founded by the Sweet Potato Farmer Field School (FFS) Graduate Groups. There are 6 Graduate FFS groups and 6 New Service Provider FFS Groups. Each of the 12 groups has 25 members and there are nearly three hundred members.

Our group exists to help women farmers, and mainly those who have lost their husbands in the Insurgency. They learn and work together to help each other to farm effectively. The group grows citrus fruit and keeps bees, poultry and pigs. We have 35 members, 31 women and 4 men. We cannot climb up the trees and cut so we need a few men which are interested and have a faithful heart to do work with us.

Learning approaches have been used by Development Support Services DSS in Uganda to promote peace among refugees and local communities in northern Uganda.