3 Cases <strong>from</strong> Tanzania Figure 21 PELUM-Tanzania’s key relationships 88 33 member organizations pelum<strong>tanzania</strong> PELUM Association Partner organizations MVIWATA International networks & programmes National and local government Farmer groups and networks
Documentation and communication PELUM-Tanzania: Networking for sustainable agriculture Documentation enables smallholder farmers and development organizations to share their experiences: successful technologies and approaches, as well as failures. Farmers have many traditional practices and have developed innovations that have not been documented or shared with others. Because development organizations are focused on their day-to-day activities, they often omit to document what they have done and learned, so risk losing this valuable knowledge as key staff move on. Activities PELUM-Tanzania’s country desk runs a documentation and resource centre in Dodoma. The centre gathers information on sustainable agriculture initiatives, advocacy and lobbying activities in Tanzania and elsewhere. It makes this information available to member organizations, farmer groups, partner organizations, students, the government and the public. People can come to the resource centre to read and exchange information, or they can get the information through visits, discussion forums arranged by PELUM-Tanzania, emails, leaflets, newsletters, and the PELUM Association’s bulletin and its magazine, Ground Up. The resource centre has a large number of publications, reports, CD-ROMs and other documents, many of which are not available anywhere else. The centre is a key resource for member organizations, partners, farmers, and the public. PELUM-Tanzania’s quarterly newsletter, called Kilimo Endelevu (“Sustainable Agriculture”), contains articles about good practices in sustainable agriculture, agricultural marketing, policy advocacy issues, seed and food security, experiences in community development, planned events, farmers’ local innovations and news. The newsletter is meant to enhance information exchange and distribution, networking and sharing. Most of the articles are by farmers themselves. Two thousand copies of each issue are produced. Member organizations receive 60 copies of each issue at cost. PELUM-Tanzania publishes various books, booklets, brochures and leaflets about various aspects of sustainable agriculture, lobbying and advocacy techniques, genetically modified crops, and so on. These publications are written for smallholder farmers, public and decision makers. They are published in English and Swahili, so both partners and smallholder farmers can understand them. Some publications are distributed free of charge, while others are sold at a subsidized price so the intended readers can afford them, but part of the production cost can be recouped. Results This documentation and communication work keeps member and partner organizations informed about issues related to sustainable agriculture. PELUM-Tanzania has studied various policy documents, popularized them and translated some into Swahili for dissemination to member and partner organizations and farmers’ groups. New projects in 2003 and 2004 included initiatives to promote food security and local innovations. The Kilimo Endelevu newsletter is an important way of disseminating information within 89
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