Women provide 70-80% of agricultural labor and produce over 80% of staple foods. Climate vulnerability affects about 58% of the farming population of Tanzania meaning that out of a population of 62.9 million, 36.37 million people are negatively impacted. In addition, social norms, cultural practices, and an unsupportive policy environment prohibit economic gains and marginalize women in decision-making, including access to and use of resources. This keeps women from adequately investing in agricultural value chains and/or CRA practices.
Therefore; project intends to address climate vulnerability among small-scale farmers through Farmers Field and Business School (FFBS) and Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA), with a strengthened gender transformative approach through Social Analysis and Action (SAA) – a community-led social change process through which beneficiaries explore and challenge gender social norms, shaping their lives. FFBS+VSLA+SAA is a cost-effective and sustainable way to reduce climate vulnerability by addressing all those challenges together, increasing investments in CRA practices and dissemination of climate information, improving the status of women, household (HH) food/nutrition security, and incomes.
FY 23 – FY 24 Project Achievements:
- The project managed to conduct a baseline survey across all the project villages with the aim of measuring the project performance before and after the implementation of the project.
- The project has facilitated the establishment of 110 FFBS (26 in Iringa, 27 in Kilolo and 57 in Wanging’ombe Districts) for learning purposes, which represents 102% of the target set for convention 1. The farmers learned Climate Resilient Agriculture practices including how to prepare compost manure, intercropping with major focus on Good Agriculture Practices of soyabean and sunflower value chains.
- The project established 323 VSLAs within the project areas, with 8035 members, 71% women.
- A total of (27.2 hectares) under 110 FFBS plots demonstrated Climate Resilient agriculture practices for learning purpose to increase awareness of farmers on how to apply improved agriculture practices and technologies.
- The project also managed to establish 27 vegetable gardens to 27 primary Schools in Wanging’ombe to comply with government initiatives of busting nutrition in Njombe region, however this was not part of the project plan, but the project adopted it during its implementation.
- The project conducted gender analysis to inform the project on the best approaches during implementation.