Farm mechanisation innovation platform

Morogoro region
(active until June 2010)

RIU Tanzania has been working with stakeholders in the Morogoro region of Tanzania (Ulanga, Kilombero, Kilosa and Mvomero districts) to improve smallholders' access to tractors for ploughing, weeding and other forms of mechanized farming. The mechanisation platform has been capture on RIUtv (see video, right). This has been achieved by the introduction of the Mechanisation Innovation Platform. The platform is experimenting with different solutions that will enhance maize and rice productivity among smallholder farmers by increasing their access to mechanisation.

Bundling
RIU has been working to increase the capacity of smallholder farmers to access and mechanisation. This is mostly done by mobilising farmers to bundle their demands for accessing different farm implements and gain negotiation powers with different service providers through an economy of scale. Tractors and other tillage machinery are used as entry points to build the needed capacity for smallholder farmers to access other technologies. In the process of using tractors, farmers will be facilitated to develop interest and capacities to access other mechanised farm implements beyond ploughing and tilling, inputs and post harvest technologies.

To June 2010, RIU will continue to facilitate processes to identify and sensitise farm machinery owners in all the wards in the four districts to understand the concept of working with farmers who have learned to cooperate and bundle up their requirements. In the process, they will develop price lists and packages to stimulate farmers to put their demands together for purchasing farm machinery services. Also, intensive sensitisation of farmers towards block farming and general bundling of their demands will be carried out in all villages that grow rice and maize. The community mobilisers doing this work will be selected and their capacity to mobilise their communities will be built. These will later on act as links between farmers and tractor owners.

Joint meetings between farmers and farm machinery owners will enable both parties to agree on working practices, the mobilised demands (e.g. number, size and location of block farms) will also be advertised in the local media so that tractor owners can see and appreciate the opportunity for business. In order to ensure sufficient competition and that every mobilised village is serviced, institutions like churches, schools, estate farms etc owning farm machinery will also be made ready to render services to mobilised farmers in their vicinity. Generally, on-going meetings will be organised with farmers, farm machinery owners, animal draught power owners and technicians/mechanics so as to identify needs from each group.

The background to the decision to work with farm mechanisation included the fact that the FAMOGATA programme and DEMACO Company are bringing about 200 tractors and other farm machinery to Morogoro Region.

In order to ensure efficient running of agricultural machinery in rural areas, RIU Tanzania is also working with other stakeholders, such as fuel and lubricants suppliers, rural garage owners and parts dealers, enhancing their capacity to provide timely and quality services. Where these services were not provided but were needed, RIU stimulated and supported private sector investment.

Smallholders featured on the RIUtv film report that they will now be able to cultivate more land and also employ other better farming practices, such as using improved varieties and fertilizer.

Meanwhile, tractor owners have expressed the realization that smallholder farmers are their main potential clients, so developing different price packages for different farm sizes and flexible payment mechanisms attractive to smallholder farmers is the only way to go if they want their business to grow.

Progress to December 2009
RIU worked with the platform to identify system challenges and experimented with possible solutions to unblock the demand and supply deadlock in mechanisation hire. The work include:

• developing mobilisation guidelines (for practicing block farming) that will be used during the activities planned for about 300 villages in Mvomero, Ulanga, Kilosa and Kilombero districts
• building demand - supporting the capacity of farmers to use mechanisation by mobilising and promoting self-organisation, expanding area under cultivation and bundling of demands to enable them to buy services at affordable rates.
• reducing the costs of ploughing for small-scale farmers; improve the knowledge and entrepreneurship skills for farmers; improve productivity and break through the supply-demand deadlock
• enhancing mechanisation supply side - through the platform, the program supported tractor owners and operators to organise themselves better to provide services, with common, transparent and fair prices, increased reliability and client orientation so that they can improve the profitability of tractors through a higher running time throughout the year. The ultimate goal here is to lower costs, increase efficiency and availability of services, hence promote overall productivity
• facilitating linkages among different stakeholders in the system through the platform to ensure that all necessary support systems are in place, e.g. service centres for farm implements, input supplies, storage and processing facilities, transportation, markets etc.

RIU Tanzania has also worked with herbicide specialists to identify specific weed species and unwanted plants in target areas and recommend types of herbicides that can be used to kill them. The specialists will later conduct on-farm demonstrations on the types of herbicides and correct measurements to be used.

Policy
RIU co-hosted a very successful meeting on mechanization at which the Ministry of Agriculture took on board farmers' suggestions for developing new legislation for controlling the quality of imported and manufactured farm machinery.

RIU also worked with four financial institutions advising the government to develop a better loan and guaranteed scheme for the sector. In collaboration with the Mechanisation Department, RIU is developing a farm machinery catalogue and dealers directory. These will both be disseminated to farmers at the village and ward level all over the country to ease access to information for decision making. Lack of a single reference material on places to purchase farm machinery and the types of machinery available in the country was expressed as a major factor contributing to poor knowledge of such technologies by farmers.

Platform exit plan - gap analysis
The farm mechanisation platform comes to an end in June 2010 - so it is vital that RIU invests in capacity building to ensure that it can continue to work effectively after RIU is not driving the programme forwards. This will relate to ensuring that platform champions, facilitators and community mobilisers are able to reach critical masses and develop necessary linkages at the village level. This process will involve facilitating different visits and meetings with different stakeholders, platform members, local authorities and relevant service providers. The platform will also be linked to relevant national and regional processes in order to sustain its initiatives.

RIU will facilitate processes to ensure that relevant stakeholders are identified and engaged to continue all relevant platform activities. This will ensure a smooth transfer of the platform upon RIU's exit and ensure platform's sustainability.