UN Division for Sustainable Development

Case Study Detail Record

Organization type:	Major Groups

Submitting organization:	PELUM – Network (Participatory Ecological Land Use Management Association)

Affiliation:

Name of Focal Point:	Yakobo E.K. Tibamanya, PELUM-Tanzania, info@pelumtanzania.org

Initiative Title:	Networking for Sustainable Agriculture

Internet links:	http://www.misereor.de

Scope:	National: - United Republic of Tanzania

Status:	Ongoing

Timeframe:	Start: June Pre 1997 End:

Lead Institution:	PELUM Tanzania

Stakeholders/Partners:	Misereor Germany

Relevent issues:	- Food security and sustainable agriculture - Enhancing agricultural productivity through adequate and sustainable inputs - Access to financing, investments or markets - Capacity building - Technology transfer - Research development - Integrating rural development strategies into broader development strategies - Empowerment of local rural communities - Natural resources management - Access to financing - Technology transfer - Africa - Others - Sustainable development for Africa

Objectives/Challenges:

- Help farmers, especially smallholders, to manage sustainably their environment
- Enable farmers to identify problems and to experiment and innovate, using locally available resources
- Organize farmers as strong networks to promote their interests at local and national levels

Lessons Learned:

- PELUM-Tanzania’s emphasis on participatory approaches has promoted farmer-to-farmer delivery of extension services, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the development activities, leading to greater collaboration within farmers’ groups, adoption of more appropriate farming techniques, and (dramatically) higher yields.
- Newsletters, email and internet facilities have proven highly useful for disseminating information and getting responses within and outside PELUM-Tanzania’s constituency.
- Strong and widespread farmers’ networks have helped farmers gain confidence through mutual learning. Extensionists have come to appreciate the farmers’ detailed understanding of their crops, livestock and surroundings, and have a new, positive attitude towards this knowledge.

Summary:

PELUM-Tanzania, composed of many strong member organizations with a focused and experienced management team, has placed special emphasis on the following aspects:

Capacity-building: PELUM-Tanzania has helped member organizations and smallholder farmers gain knowledge on sustainable agriculture and farmers’ empowerment. As a result, they now devote greater efforts to agricultural sustainability and biodiversity conservation, through greater use of manure and locally prepared organic pesticides, as well as seeds of local varieties of crops and trees. Many of the member organizations have modified their programs, projects and activities accordingly, putting them in a better position to facilitate changes in the villages they serve. The training has helped generate new partnerships and collaborative relationships, further promoting sustainable agriculture and increasing the scope and reach of PELUM-Tanzania itself.

Documentation and communication: PELUM-Tanzania has studied various policy documents, popularized them and translated some into Swahili for dissemination to member and partner organizations and farmers’ groups, which keeps them updated about issues related to sustainable agriculture.

Promoting farmers’ networks: with the help of PELUM-Tanzania’s member and partner organizations, farmers’ groups/organizations/networks are becoming increasingly popular, and have achieved a great deal of recognition inside and outside Tanzania since the Small Farmers’ Convergence preparations started in 2001. Networks affiliated with PELUM-Tanzania are attractive partners for government agencies and NGOs. Unlike most projects and donor-driven farmers’ organizations, local MVIWATA groups and networks have a high degree of financial autonomy and independence.

Advocacy: as a result of the networks’ advocacy work, some member and partner organizations have modified advocacy strategies by forming alliances with farmers’ organizations to identify issues, lobby and campaign together. Major achievements include: inducing government ministers to recognize MVIWATA at the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, largely due to advocacy efforts by The Tanzanian delegates from the Small Farmers’ Convergence; organizing a campaign against genetically modified organisms, which succeeded in dissuading the government from submitting a biosafety bill draft to Parliament in 2005; campaigning and advocating at Nane Nane (the government-sponsored National Farmers’ Day, on 8 August each year), for example by choosing “Support sustainable agriculture – not genetically modified organisms” as the main theme for one of the events (two other advocacy messages for the event were: “Participatory policy formulation: a key to poverty reduction”, and “Preserve, improve and use local seeds and practices”).

Marketing and Trade: A study on agricultural markets and trade in Tanzania looked at ways to provide incentives to producers while keeping consumer prices low. Producers face high losses during times of glut as a consequence of inadequate storage, processing, transport, and quality control systems. For another Nane Nane event, farmers chose “Access to markets as a pillar to improved agriculture” as an advocacy and lobbying issue. In response to farmers’ calls, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives has started involving representatives of smallholder farmers through MVIWATA in the formulation of national market policy.