Introduction about the project
The Ecological Organic Agriculture Initiative (EOA-I) phase II is geared at “Mainstreaming Ecological Organic Agriculture into Agricultural Systems in Africa for the Period 2019-2023”). The initiative is a continental program implemented under the guidance and oversight of the African Union (AU) chaired by the Continental Steering Committee. It’s designed to establish an African organic platform, based on available best practices and to develop sustainable organic farming systems. The EOA initiative is steered by pillars and implemented in Benin, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda.
The pillars include;
(1) Research and Applied Knowledge: implemented by Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT)
(2) Information and Communication; implemented by Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM) Tanzania
(3) Value Chain and Market Development; and
(4) Management Coordination and Governance which are implemented by TOAM.
Each of the Initiative’s pillars has associated actions and expected results that help the project reach its intended objective. Pillar 2 interventions rely on the synergies from Pillar 1 since they concentrate on repackaging and distributing the knowledge produced by Pillar 1, while Pillar 1 focuses on a farmer-led research method to generate knowledge or information. The knowledge is presented in a way that is user-friendly and appropriate for the particular people that the project is targeting along the value chains. To overcome systemic market failures in the EOA sector, Pillar 3 improves value chain development and applies the market systems development (MSD) strategy. Coordination, networking, advocacy, and the development of institutional capacity among the project’s three pillars are the main objectives of Pillar 4.
EOA-I development goal
The EOA – Aims to transform and create sustainable food systems by promoting ecologically sound strategies and practices among diverse stakeholders in production, processing, marketing, and policymaking, to safeguard the environment, improve livelihoods, alleviate poverty and guarantee food security.
The overall goal of the initiative is to mainstream EOA into national agricultural production systems by 2025 to improve agricultural productivity, food security, access to markets, and sustainable development in Africa.
Key achievements
These are some of the realized achievements of the project as of December 2023:
1. Three types of technologies were developed, tested and validated to be used by value chain actors.
2. Over 2000 copies of the knowledge materials were disseminated to more than 1,500,000 users through various knowledge dissemination methods including physical events, and social media platforms.
3. Successfully developed tomatoes and okra value chain analysis which was validated by the stakeholders.
4. Over 100 TOTs have been trained incluiding the extension officers whom have reached over 2000 farmers on the ground providing them with skills and knowledge on the EOA sector.
5. Over 2300 value chain actors were reached by the BSD services on training, PGS certification, marketing linkages, and financial literacy services.
6. Three PGS groups have been certified through this project and directly linked to the hotels where they supply their produces
7. Significantly contributed to the development process and the launch of the Tanzania National Ecological Organic Agriculture Strategy and potentially influenced other relevant policies to promote the advancement of the EOA sector.
