The Ecosystem-based Adaptation for Rural Resilience (EBARR) project, is a project funded by Global Environmental Facility (GEF), and executed by Vice President’s Office in Tanzania.
This project started in 2018/19 and is expected to end in 2024. It is being executed in five districts in Tanzania mainland, which include Kishapu (Shinyanga), Mvomero (Morogoro), Mpwapwa (Dodoma), Simanjiro (Manyara) and one in Zanzibar which is Kaskazini ‘A’ Unguja.
One of the activities implemented by the project is promoting climate smart agriculture. The project empowers these rural communities with agricultural skills and methods that enable them adapt climate change impacts..
In promoting climate smart agriculture through irrigation, EBARR project is supporting the development of an irrigation scheme, in Lukenge village, Mvomero district.
EBBAR project coordinator Dr. James Nyarobi explains that the village has farm area of about 2000 hectares and a reliable annual river with the potential of growing rice throughout the year with irrigation. If completed the irrigation scheme will benefit about 3000 community members around the scheme. Therefore, EBARR project has enabled the construction of the main irrigation canal (2.7 km long) in the Lukenge irrigation scheme.
He says: ‘There is a farm area of about 2000 hectares that are intended to be irrigated through this irrigation scheme. Therefore, the existence of the project supports the lives of approximately 3000 citizens who rely on this scheme for their livelihoods.’
The EBBAR project coordinator in Mvomero District Council Baraka Mteri added that the scheme has a great contribution to the economy of the entire Mvomero District Council, especially by looking at the entire value chain of the rice crop.
In other parts of the district, EBARR project has supported establishment of cashew demonstration farms, especially considering that cashews are one of the main commercial crops, and thus empowering the people with the best way and method of cashew farming, is to empower them economically.
According to Mteri, the project also empowered the project beneficiary communities by giving them training on mushroom cultivation, which is also a good business/commercial crop that can be cultivated within a short period of time. He reported that in some villages like Melela, Magali and Lubungo, all in Mvomero District; some group members have already started producing mushrooms.
“We have also established farms for horticultural production, specifically growing vegetables. Members in these groups have benefited from the skills obtained through training and also being assisted by ourproject to establish demonstration farms (screen houses and open field plots) which are now helping farmers to improve their lives, through the income they get.’
In Kishapu District Council, the project has empowered farmers to engage in the sisal cultivation. This is because the Kishapu District Council prioritizes sisal crop as a commercial crop.
Godwin Everygist, EBARR project coordinator in Kishapu District, says that the project has facilitated training on the best methods/the most effective ways of cultivating sisal crops. They have established a 20-acre sisal nursery that will produce enough seedlings to distribute to farmers who depend on sisal cultivation. The distribution of sisal seedlings has already started.
‘We have distributed sisal seedlings to the identified farmers in the villages of Kiloleli, Muguda and Mihama.’ Concludes Mr. Everygist.
EBARR project in Tanzania kicked off in 2018/19 and is expected to end next year – 2024