Tanzania

Tanzania is home to over 63 million people, 80% of which is dependent on the agricultural sector, which accounts for 25% of its Gross Domestic Product. The agricultural sector of Tanzania is dominated by smallholder farmers. They produce 95% of the national food requirements. The seed systems plays a crucial role in the agricultural sector and in ensuring food security.

Adaptation strategies proposed for climate change, particularly for smallholder farmers, include providing access to improved and resilient seeds. In addition to improved seeds, other recommended adaptation approaches are the use of farming technologies, such as the development of an agri-weather advisory service and improved extension services.

Project 1: Technical support for strengthening digital climate-informed advisory services and scaling climate-resilient seeds

How to transform the Tanzania’s agriculture with digital solutions and climate-resilient seeds?
The Tanzania Food Systems Resilience Program (T-FSRP) is a US$ 300 million investment by the World Bank in Tanzania’s agricultural sector. The development objective of the FSRP is to support food systems resilience by strengthening agricultural service delivery, the adoption of climate resilient technologies and fiscal performance in the agricultural sector.

The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) gives Weather Impact the opportunity to give technical assistance to FSRP with the assignment ‘Technical support for strengthening digital climate-informed advisory services and scaling climate-resilient seeds’.

At Weather Impact, we’re collaborating with Esoko, Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI), and Tanzania Youth Espouse for Gender and Development (TYEGD) to support Tanzania’s Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) in two key areas:
🔹 𝗘𝗻𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 (𝗗𝗖𝗔𝗦) to help smallholder farmers adopt climate adaptation strategies
🔹 Conducting a 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆 𝗼𝗻 𝗧𝗮𝗻𝘇𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗮’𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀 to assess environmental vulnerabilities and improve climate-resilient seed production

In March 2025 the project officially started with an inception workshop in Dodoma, Tanzania, bringing together key stakeholders including 𝗔𝗦𝗔 (Agricultural Seeds Agency), 𝗧𝗢𝗦𝗖𝗜 (Tanzania Official Seed Certification Institute), and 𝗜𝗜𝗧𝗔. A great opportunity to align efforts, discuss digitalization, climate adaptation, resilient seed systems, and set the foundation for impactful work ahead!

Project 2: Kilimo Thabiti- Agriculture that is resilient to climate change

To support climate-smart solutions that support farmers in their decision making, Weather Impact, Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI), ESOKO and Tanzania Youth Espouse for Gender and Development (TYEGD) are working together in the Kilimo Thabiti project since 2024. We develop, provide and test a location-specific dynamic Agri-Weather Advisory service. To tailor this service to the farmer and make it crop-specific, the development goes beyond sending general weather forecasts and farming advisories.

With a powerful digital platform that has been developed by Esoko, complete farmer profiles are registered. This includes a lot of useful data such as district and ward location, type of crop, gender and age. The dashboard is shown below;

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Fig. 1 mAgric Colekt dashboard with farmer registrations information.

Cassave and maize
Many smallholder farmers produce staple crops such as maize and cassava, which are part of the top 3 most consumed foods in the country and 30% of the total agricultural land is dedicated to maize. These two crops are therefore essential for food production, population’s income and food security and represent the two largest planted areas in the Mara region. Cassava and maize are not only consumed domestically but also serve as cash crops for export.

Local populations have experienced heavy droughts, floods and delays in the start of the rain season coupled with uneven rainfall distribution during the season. Due to climate change,
crop yields of staple produce (i.e., maize, cassava) are projected to decrease (USAID 2018).

Two-way communication with farmers

By developing an agri-weather advisory service for the Tanzanian farmers, we aim to enhance food security and increase crop-yield for cassava and maize farmers for the next season.
The service will be disseminated directly on the telephone of 2400+ farmers via SMS, voice message and mobile application in the Mara region in Tanzania. 500+ farmers will receive training on usage of the Agri-weather tool, climate change, and digital literacy. The service is based on real time crop-growth modeling, weather forecasts and two-way communication with farmers. The communication channel used within this project will work both ways, allowing farmers to receive agri-weather advisories, but also send information back (e.g. crop types, planting dates, crop status, questions, feedback, etc.). This way, we use local farmers’ knowledge and information to make the service more specific and accurate.

The project is funded by the Fund for Innovation in Development (FID) and plans to deliver:

A dynamic real-time agri-weather advisory service for maize and cassava, and alerts
Establishing communication channels via SMS and app that do not only allow for sending advisories but also for gathering feedback
Farmers trainings on the use and interpretation of agro-weather advisory services
Real-time monitoring of crop growth and rainfall by a group of trained citizen scientists

Three local partners are involved in the development of this innovation:

The Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) who has developed an agronomic package to advise cassava and maize farmers on when to plant, harvest, weed, etc.
ESOKO for their IT and platform expertise to bring information to smallholder farmers
Tanzania Youth Espouse for Gender and Development (TYEGD) to ensure inclusion and diversity in smallholder agriculture

Kick-Off week

January 2024 marked the official launch of the Kilimo Thabiti project in Tanzania! A week full of working sessions, farmer visits and fun team-building activities, together with all partners. We have trained 30 lead farmers for on the ground data collection to enhance the accuracy of the advisories. They learned how to take correct rainfall and soil moisture measurements and can transfer this knowlegde to other farmers.

A number of special government officials was invited to attend this kick-off as well and we even made it to three television news channels in Tanzania, which truly made it a great start!

Video: Item about the Kilimo Thabiti project on the national Tanzanian television news channels

“Those text messages do not mislead, they help us a lot and prepare us psychologically for the coming weather conditions. If I had a plan to dry my crops in the sun, and then I got a message that it will rain, I have to postpone drying the crops until it is sunny again. This helps us to avoid loss”
Veronica Muhende, a farmer from Sarawe village in Bunda District.

During a second trip in August 2024, we heared farmers’ voices and opinions on the agro-weather SMSs and trainings on good agricultural practices we provided earlier. A real moment of truth!
The feedback was overwhelmingly positive! Although the project targets maize and cassava farmers specifically, farmers have shared that they use the weather forecasts way beyond the cultivation of those two crops: for example for saving water for irrigation, accurate timing of the cultivation of vegetables, drying of crops, and even the drying of bricks.

We also learned that the farmers trained as citizen scientists became the voices for weather in their communities.

We continuously take farmers’ feedback into account, for further developement of our service in the upcoming season from October.

Video: Farmers’ views and impact of the services in Kilimo Thabiti project – Created by Hosea Revocatus (TARI)

“These SMS alerts are incredibly reliable and have transformed the way we plan our farming activities,” – Ms. Muhende, a farmer from Sarawe village, Tanzania.

More news about this project;

Kilimo Thabiti Kick-off week
Weather Impact launced Kilimo Thabiti
TARI – Kick-off Kilimo Thabiti
Kilimo Thabiti’s technology praised by farmers