In the town of Mafinga in Tanzania we have launched a new project called Setting up an apple orchard and improving the care of cows at the parish in Mafinga. Its goal is to expand the range of hard-skills courses on offer, raise the quality of agricultural production, and improve the sustainability of the parish in Mafinga.

The project is being carried out at a Salesian parish that runs a training centre for girls from poor families. This year 27 girls there are studying tailoring, and thanks to our new project they will also have the chance to gain skills in caring for fruit trees. Specifically, the girls will learn how to look after apple trees properly. Growing apples is possible in Mafinga thanks to the suitable climate. Of course, caring for trees in a tropical climate has its own specifics, so it is necessary to learn how to do it. Why is such a skill useful for the local people? Apples are a highly valued crop in Tanzania. They have a stable price throughout the year and growing apples is financially undemanding, so the return on investment is very quick and selling apples brings farmers a decent income. The girls will thus gain an important life skill that can improve their lives.

Thanks to the project, 100 apple trees have already been planted on the parish land. A training course on growing apples will then be organised, in which 53 people will be trained (the girls from the tailoring course, employees of the Salesian parish and also of the Salesian boarding school). Because of the high number of applicants, the course will be split into two parts. The training will be delivered by the local company Tamu Tamu Tanzania, which specialises in apple growing. In addition to the local staff, the girls from the tailoring course will also care for the trees in the orchard. The aim is to give them hands-on experience of growing apples, so that they have the chance to broaden their skills and to learn the correct methods of caring for the trees.

To make sure the apple trees are being grown correctly at the parish, four monitoring visits will be organised during 2022. The monitoring will be carried out by a field officer from Tamu Tamu Tanzania. They will provide the necessary advice and inspect the orchard. They will also be available for phone consultations as needed. In addition to the parish in Mafinga, the field officer will also visit the Salesian school Mafinga Seminary, where an apple orchard already exists.

The project will also purchase a lawn mower, which will allow the parish to prepare feed for the cows kept on the parish farm. At present the cows graze off the parish grounds, where they often eat dangerous items such as nails or plastics while grazing, which causes them digestive problems. Preparing feed directly at the parish will raise the quality of care for the cows and therefore also the quality of the cows’ produce, which the girls from poor families at the local boarding house also consume.

The project will bring not only new skills to the Salesian parish in Mafinga, but in the longer term it will also improve the parish’s sustainability. Thanks to the sale of apples, the parish will have an income in the future from which it will be able to fund studies for poor young people.

The project is being carried out during 2022 in cooperation with the civic association MISIA MLADÝCH. We warmly thank them for their support.

In Tanzania, between 2020 and 2022 we carried out a project called Supporting self-employment in agriculture through building practical skills. Its main goal was to raise the income of smallholder farmers from agricultural activity, which we sought to achieve by building farmers’ skills in growing apple trees. The project ran in the mountainous regions of Iringa and Njombe, which have a high share of low-income smallholder farmers and where climatic conditions are suitable for apple trees. The specific goal of the project was to secure and raise a sustainable income for farmers through apple growing while also strengthening their food security.

The first result achieved by the project is the training of farmers in apple growing. Over the two years of the project, 1,290 farmers were trained. The topics covered in each training were tree planting, correct training of the tree crown, fertilising, spraying and tree care using readily available organic agents such as garlic, chilli peppers and soap. The training takes place directly in the farmers’ villages. In addition to the farmers, the project also trained 82 agricultural agents — state employees whose role is to provide farmers with advice on growing crops so as to maximise yields. Thanks to their new knowledge and skills, they can now also advise farmers who grow apple trees.

The second result achieved is the establishment of farmers’ apple orchards. So that trained farmers had trees to plant, we expanded the fruit-tree nursery at Tamu Tamu Tanzania by thousands of trees, which meant that over the course of the project we were able to provide smallholder farmers with a total of 36,125 apple trees. Even after the project’s end, field officers ensure regular monitoring of the trained farmers and provide them with the advice they need on caring for the apple trees.

The third planned result of the project was the creation of a buyer chain for the apples purchased from the trained farmers — within the project we secured a market for 13,244 kg of apples.

We carried out the project in cooperation with the social enterprise Tamu Tamu Tanzania from 1 September 2020 to 31 August 2022, and it was financially supported by a SlovakAid grant of EUR 137,465.