Mbyea, Tanzania – April 4th, 2018 – The Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS) field coordinator for the Feed the Future Alliance for Resilient Coffee (ARC) project in Uganda, Victor Komakech, visited our c&c sites in Southern Tanzania. The local team shared their experiences with weather data collection, household and field adaptation practices as well as resilient coffee varieties.

“It was interesting to see how farmers are controlling soil erosion in coffee farms on the steep slopes of Rungwe and Songwa region through the construction of trenches, use of cover crops and dry mulch” states Victor after his visit.

Together with HRNS we support the establishment of demonstration plots of high yielding and disease resistant varieties of coffee. In Southern Tanzania we further support climate-smart agriculture practices such as trenching, cover crops, dry mulching and soil fertility management. Farmers are able to learn from these sites and replicate the practices on their farms.

The shared learning of both teams included the visit of various demo plots. One of them had planted banana trees as intercrop. Banana trees do not only serve as shade trees between coffee rows but also generate additional income when selling the fruit at markets. Furthermore, they can secure the food supply of farmer households.

Another learning was the involvement of farmers in monitoring rainfall information and provision of seasonal weather forecasts in collaboration with the regional meteorology department. This monitoring tool helps farmers to plan and implement their farming activities from an informed point of view of the anticipated weather conditions.