Modern farming increases yields and income

“The yield and income has increased after attending the training provided by SUGECO and now I can harvest 8 to 10 tons of tomatoes and peppers in my farm’’

Seif Mohamed Mgumba earns most of his money from growing tomatoes, vegetables and peppers. His farming activities had seemingly being hopeless, because the income was not sufficient to support his family.

“I used to engage in farming activities to get income and support my family, but it was too much work for very little profit and the income was not sufficient,” Said Seif.

Seif benefited from the Hands-on Agribusiness Skills Training project provided by SUGECO with funding from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in the year 2017. The project provides support to equip youth with agricultural technologies to enable them to bridge skill gaps in order to embark on enterprise development in agriculture value chains.

The training took place in Mkongo Agricultural Youth Camp located in Rufiji, Tanzania where trainees stayed in a camp for fourteen (14) days so that they could acquire practical and relevant skills. The project, which began in 2016, has now benefited over 860 youth farmers. The project provided them with startup kits like Seed, small drip irrigation kit, etc.

Before the project began the harvests for Mr. Seif was very low due to poor farming practices and rudimentary farming techniques. In 2017 SUGECO trained 267 youth including Mr. Seif on farming site selection, selection of quality soil for nursery preparation, soil sterilization, ridge making, transplanting, fertilizer and manure application, weeding and drip system installation. The project also provided youth with startup kits to facilitate startup capital and to enable them farming throughout the year while using drip system.