September 19, 2011

USAID Awards Food Security Contract in Tanzania

Program to Boost Maize, Rice Value Chains; Farmers’ Incomes

The ACDI/VOCA Support for Food Security Activities (SFSA) team, a consortium of nine food security and agricultural development organizations, recently launched a new $30 million USAID-funded program to boost food security in Tanzania.

The five-year program, Tanzania Staples Value Chain (NAFAKA), will integrate agricultural, gender and nutritional development approaches to improve smallholder farmers’ productivity and profitability in maize and rice value chains.

“Increasing the quantity and availability of key staple crops in countries like Tanzania is at the heart of fighting hunger and malnutrition in East Africa,” says Lee Rosner of ACDI/VOCA, the consortium’s lead organization. “By working with farmers, especially women, in the maize and rice value chains, we expect to build farmers’ incomes and improve rural families’ access to diverse and nutritional foods.”

The Tanzania program is part of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) Feed the Future initiative, which seeks to harmonize regional hunger- and poverty-fighting efforts in countries with chronic food insecurity and insufficient production of staple crops.

Tanzania Farmers to Grow More, Sell More

Tanzania has experienced strong growth in its agricultural sector over the past decade, but the benefits have not been widely distributed. More than 40 percent of Tanzanians live in food-deficit regions, where irregular rainfall causes recurring food shortages.

With 80 percent of the labor force employed in agriculture, the sector has the potential to drive economic growth and reduce poverty, Rosner says.

The NAFAKA program will work with rural communities and the Tanzanian Ministry of Agriculture to analyze the local maize and rice value chains and develop a strategy to strengthen them. It will use a multifaceted approach to:

• improve productivity, through a strong program of public and private extension services;
• increase incomes of vulnerable farmers, including women and young people, by building robust marketing groups to increase their capacity to generate assets, capital, skills and knowledge;
• improve competitiveness and trade by encouraging greater trade investments and facilitating win-win demonstration initiatives; and
• increase investment and innovation, through a $2 million grant fund to buy down the risk of value chain actors to adopt new technologies and practices.

The interventions will focus on the geographic region of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor (SAGCOT), primarily in the Kilombero and Mvomero districts in Morogoro. The program will conduct activities in the Kiteto district in Manyara, Kongwa district in Dodoma and Zanzibar.

Food Security Partners

NAFAKA is the first award to the ACDI/VOCA consortium under the SFSA indefinite quality contract. In implementing the project, ACDI/VOCA will draw on its more than 45 years of agricultural value chain and food security experience in Africa, integrating market-oriented humanitarian assistance with market-driven staple food production and trade promotion interventions.

The program also will draw on the expertise of several other consortium members:

• IFDC will contribute to input supply and market development activities.
• Catholic Relief Services (CRS) will bring its expertise in savings and lending methodology, and interactions with vulnerable groups.
• Danya International will implement behavioral change and communications strategies.
• Targeted trainings will be provided by Associates for International Resources and Development (AIRD), Crown Agents USA and Kimetrica.

The ACDI/VOCA consortium will partner with East African private and public organizations as well, including Farm Input Promotions-Africa (FIPs-Africa), Match Makers Associates, MVIWATA and Rural Urban Development Initiatives (RUDI). It will identify additional local implementing partners to conduct key on-the-ground activities throughout the life of the project.

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