cases from tanzania - Sustainet

3 Cases from Tanzania
The farmers do all the work themselves. HEM provides training, technical support, advice,
and an initial set of planting materials such as fodder tree seedlings and grass seeds, and lends
equipment such as spades and spirit levels. It does not provide any form of payment.
introducing innovations
How has HEM introduced the soil and water conservation techniques to the villagers on the
slopes of Kilimanjaro? How has it managed to convince them to invest a lot of time and
effort in these new practices?
HEM realized that erosion might be a problem in the area because of the amount of soil
being washed down the rivers: they were brown with mud every rainy season. HEM staff
made an initial visit to the villages on the mountain slopes to get an idea of the situation.
They discussed the problem with government technicians responsible for agriculture, forestry
and community development in the area.
The area has 19 villages, each with 350–500 families. HEM selected eight of the villages
closest to Himo, and invited two leaders (the chairman and secretary) from each village to
attend 2–3 days of training on soil and water conservation at the HEM training centre in
Himo. The Ward Secretary and Divisional Secretary (representing the next two higher layers
of local government) also attended the training. The training covered various methods
of controlling erosion and restoring soil fertility, using a combination of classroom discussions
and visits to trial plots on the 2.5-acre HEM experiment farm. This farm has plots
for demonstrating banana cultivation, contour farming, fodder production, and various
conservation structures.
The leaders were impressed by what they saw. They invited the HEM technicians who covered
various specializations (agriculture, natural resources, livestock, water and community
development) to visit the villages to advise the local people on how to implement these approaches
on their own land. The village leaders called several meetings with all the villagers
to discuss the problem facing the village. The leaders described the problem of erosion to
the meeting participants, and then invited the technicians to discuss it in more detail.
The local people were interested. HEM conducted a detailed participatory rural appraisal in
each village. During these appraisals, local people said that poor yields and low productivity
were their most important problem, and identified soil erosion as the cause. HEM agreed to
support a soil and water conservation programme in the villages.
People in each village established a soil and water conservation committee, responsible to
the village government. These committees have the task of raising awareness about erosion
among local people, persuading farmers to adopt soil and water conservation measures, arranging
training, planning, monitoring and implementing village-wide conservation works, and
so on. The village extension worker (see next paragraph) acts as secretary to the committee.
The committee is given tea or soda, but does not receive any payment.
The villagers nominated one farmer from each village as a village-level extension worker to
receive extra training. HEM gave the extension workers a month’s training at the HEM centre
in Himo on tree nurseries, agroforestry, rehabilitation of irrigation furrows, soil and water
conservation, zero grazing, improved stoves, and training methodologies. HEM paid these
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