Improved coffee brings change in Tarime

THE introduction of improved coffee varieties and the technology of inter-cropping in Tarime District in Mara region has immensely contributed to increased farmers’ incomes.

The Tanzania Coffee Research Institute (TaCRI) introduced improved coffee varieties and inter-cropping technology in the area to boost the income of smallholder farmers. “The new improved coffee varieties are helpful.

It has boosted our incomes. We now can educate our children and meet other basic needs,” 84-year-old Marwa Roswe, a coffee grower at Nyamwaga village said. “We have no problems of markets for selling our coffee and bananas.

The market is here and buyers are coming to the farm themselves,” he explained.

Another farmer, Elias Juma,(72), of Nyansincha village said “we have improved our houses through coffee and banana farming.” “Apart from building a modern house, I have bought a television set to what is happening in the world around us.”

Fourty-two-year-old Bhoke Sagamo of Gwitryo village said TaCRI had turned coffee to be another gold in the district. “The education provided by TaCRI through groups had reached many people after realising that coffee is profitable. For example, I was living in a grass-thatched house.

Now I am living in a modern house,” he said. This year, TaCRI marks 15 years in its campaign to revive coffee in Tarime. TaCRI’s Manager in Mara Zone, Sheila Mdemu, said she was happy of the achievements in the revival of the coffee industry.

Since 2007 TaCRI has been working with groups of farmers to increase production through seed propagation. The aim has been to rejuvenate the coffee industry by producing improved coffee varieties to replace old coffee plants.

Around 2,775 farmers, 84 farmers promoters and 76 extension officers had been trained under the initiative being supported by the European Union and the government. According to Mdemu, farmers had multiplied over 300,000 seedlings in the area.

“We had also distributed more than 7,252 extension materials conveying different messages, and over 50 demonstration plots had also been established,” she said. Improved coffee varieties are resistant to diseases such as Coffee Berry Diseases (CBD). Tarime is the leading producer of Arabica coffee in Mara region.

Meanwhile the Tarime District Council has generated more than 100m/- from coffee buyers last season, according to the District Coffee Inspector Stanley Rubalila.