Introduction about the KHEA project
The project is part of the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) initiative executed through GIZ to support a network of regional knowledge hubs for organic farming in Africa. Bio Vision Africa Trust (BvAT) is the lead coordinating agency of the project in Eastern Africa with a co-hosting arrangement with Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM) Uganda.
The overall goal of establishing a knowledge hub on Organic Agriculture (OA) is that OA is better and regionally context-specific knowledge integrated into African agriculture.
The Project has three focus areas namely:
A. The access of actors of the knowledge hubs and their networks to technical and methodological knowledge for the promotion of organic agriculture and agroecology is improved.
B. The competencies of multipliers to disseminate knowledge, concepts, and good practices on organic agriculture and agroecology are strengthened.
C. The networking of actors in organic agriculture and agroecology in the regions of Eastern and Southern Africa, West, North, and Central Africa is strengthened.
TOAM implements the KCOA/KHEA project in Tanzania in collaboration with associate Partners namely the Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT), FLORESTA Tanzania, Njombe Southern Highland Development Association (NSHIDA), and Might Society Against Poverty (MSOAPO).
The project has also engaged with two centers of excellence, which are St Joseph School Organic Farm (SJS) in Kilimanjaro and Farmers Training Centre (FTC) in Morogoro (under SAT). These centers of excellence aim to ensure multipliers and farmers have access to practical facilities and technologies during the learning exchange session.
Key achievements
The project was able to establish the necessary structures to support the implementation of the KHEA project in Tanzania. The established structures include:
1. The master trainers: A total of 6 Master trainers were trained by IFOAM to support the knowledge dissemination process.
2. Multipliers: A total of 360 multipliers were trained by the master trainers. The multipliers are the agents of disseminating the knowledge to the beneficiaries. In Tanzania more than 1000 farmers have been directly reached by these multipliers imparting them with knowledge and innovations to improve their production systems.
3. Country Validation Committee (CVCs): This is composed of five individuals who have agroecological experience with the responsibility of validating the Knowledge products collected by master trainers and multipliers at the country level.
4. Ecological Organic Agriculture Leaders (EOAL): One master trainer from each KHEA implementing country was able to be trained by IFOAM on leadership. The role of EOAL is to provide technical support to master trainers and act as a bridge to the regional team.
- TOAM in collaboration with the Master trainers in the country, have collected and validated a total of 30 Knowledge products which have been uploaded to the KHEA digital platform.
- Over 1000 farmers have been trained by multipliers in 2022-2024 using the approved training manual. Farmers are learning how to maintain soil fertility, integrated Pests and diseases management, PGS concepts and other important topics to improve their skills.
- 90% of the trained multipliers, proved to have improved their competencies during the training. This showed the knowledge they received and put it into practice through training farmers to improve their delivery methods and approaches.
- TOAM participated in regional events including the 1st Agroecology conference which was held in Nairob whereby the multipliers and associate partners were supported to participate in the events.
- In promoting the marketing KHEA project has been supporting farmers and multipliers to participate in national events including farmers week, world food day and other local marketing events. This has helped to disseminate various technologies and knowledge developed by the project.
- Two PGS groups were developed and became fully certified during the project period. The groups are in Njombe and engaged in the avocado value chain.
