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Improved agricultural technologies implemented by the Africa RISING project in Tanzania recently attracted praise from the Kongwa District Council as a project that promotes “practical improved agricultural technologies that can be applied to fight hunger in the District”. During a recent meeting (councillor’s Baraza) organized by the Kongwa District Council on 20 – 21 October; council members lauded Africa RISING efforts in the district over the past 5 years to provide farmers with effective technologies to mitigate against negative impacts of climate change.
“I am extremely impressed by what Africa RISING has been doing within our District. Farmers have been capacitated to improve their farming practices and provided with improved technologies like drought tolerant maize varieties that have made their lives much better. I believe Africa RISING is here at the right moment and we are keen for it to continue making its contributions to support Kongwa District Council in its campaign to fight against hunger through the ‘Ondoa Njaa Kongwa (ONJOKA)’ campaign,” noted the Kongwa District Commissioner, Mr Deogratias Ndejembi.
The District Commissioner also expressed optimism about the complementarity between Africa RISING’s planned scaling up of technologies and the ONJOKA initiative noting that the two initiatives will contribute in a major way to eradicating hunger in Kongwa District.
Africa RISING project partners at the meeting took the opportunity to also share some of the key results from research work done by the project and how the plans for scaling them up to reach as many farmers as possible.
Key technologies highlighted by the project team for scaling up in future included: Aflatoxin mitigation, food safety and market competitiveness; Gliricidia-pigeonpea doubled-up legume technologies;Integrated crop management technologies; Improving poultry genetics and feeding for enhanced productivity; Improved resilient legumes (groundnut and pigeonpea) and cereals like sorghum, pearl millet, Quality Protein Maize, among others.
The Africa RISING project has been implementing research for development activities in Kongwa and Kiteto districts since 2012. Partner institutions involved in implementing project activities in the two districts include International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT); Agricultural Research Institute (ARI) -Hombolo, Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), University of Dodoma (UDOM), the International Centre for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT) the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF).