In Tanzania, households participating in P4P have almost doubled their maize production, from an average of 1.35 metric tons (mt) per hectare in 2009 to an average of 2.47 mt per hectare in 2011. In Malawi, participating households increased their maize production from an average of 1.53 mt per hectare to 2.37 mt per hectare during the same period. Particularly in Tanzania, this increase seems to be connected to the use of certified maize seeds and fertilizers, a practice encouraged through P4P capacity building.
A common investment that households make with their increased income is to improve their houses. Magreth Simon Mgeni from the Usomama Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO) in Tanzania is
one of the P4P-supported farmers who has invested in permanent materials for her home.
“Before P4P I was living in a mud house, but now I have an improved house. I am now taking my children to school without any problem. Today my neighbours are learning from me, understanding how the market works, and doing as I do,”
Magreth says. When she joined P4P in 2009, Magreth was cultivating 2 acres of land. She now cultivates 9 acres, and in 2013, she sold 4,000kg of maize through her SACCO.
Increase in farmers’ organizations’ capacity
One way of measuring the impact of capacity building at the FO level is to study the services offered to their members, the quantity of their sales and the diversity of their buyers.
Since the beginning of the pilot in Tanzania, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of P4P-supported SACCOs offering marketing, post-harvest handling, and production related services. Half of them are also offering transportation services to deliver the produce to buyers. A similar trend is observed in other P4P pilot countries. In Tanzania, volumes sold by SACCOs have also increased significantly, particularly due to sales to WFP.
This sharp increase confirms that SACCOs have been able to scale up aggregation and master WFP quality specifications. This suggests that P4P’s method of providing FOs with the necessary post-harvest handling infrastructure, equipment, training and a reliable market, does indeed support FOs to aggregate and sell larger volumes.
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