Established in 2000, IRTECO aims to contribute efforts towards
poverty reduction through enhancing irrigation and economic empowerment
skills to small-scale farmers (both men and women) in areas with
irrigation potential. It achieves this through pooling experts
together to deliver better services on these topics.
Mission: Leading organization in delivering participatory skills on irrigation
and economic empowerment with gender and HIV/AIDS mainstreaming to poor
strata population in irrigation potential areas in Tanzania.
Vision: Contribute towards improvement of the standard of living of
small-scale self-formal and informal organized initiatives of small
scale farmers in irrigation potential areas by delivering water-, land
use management-, and environmental skills in the area.
Specific Objectives:
- Strengthen and support self-reliant irrigation improvement activities
- Promote environmental management
- Undertake research on resouce efficient agriculture (RES)
- Marketing of agricultural porduce ans support establishment of a network of irrigation and agribusiness at the national level
Activities
In collaboration with the government, NGOs, and farmers, IRTECO has
contributed to poverty reduction by carrying out the following:
Land and water management improvement
Through
its learning and action strategies, farmers have learnt that terracing
by itself increases production twice as much as the situation
before. Crops that have been planted on terraces are performing much better in comparison to those planted on steep slopes. Application of
water on terraced land has proved much easier and water filtration
and moisture retention capacity has been improved. For fertility
improvement, the applied farmyard manure on conserved land stays in
place due to a decrease in land slope. At the area without conservation, stunted crops of different
varieties are easily seen.
Other associated activities include: Survey
and design of irrigation and water harvesting systems, conduction of dialogue
meetings on land and water resources, training village para-consultants
on sustainable agriculture, training groups on conflict resolution water
management and establishment of homestead and group tree nurseries.
Temperature moderation and sustainable agriculture
Farmers
have been mobilised to strengthen the multi-storey agroforestry system.
Introduction of agroforestry system including catchment afforestation
and river bank protection and planting of trees at homestead areas
improved the microclimatic temperature. This package, including planting of
multipurpose trees on the same land with crops, increased number of farm
products in terms of fruits, medicine, fuel wood and timber. The animals
that are kept within the same area are fed by the crops remains and
produce farmyard manure that can be applied on land to improve
soil fertility and therefore is utilized by the plants/crops. This circle
creates a good environment for organic farming and improved
sustainable agriculture.
IRTECO is also involved in strengthening the communication and networking between irrigation and agribusiness groups. This is done through preparation of training materials and dissemination to the target groups, networking and exchange visits.
Provision of planning and leadership skills
This
includes appraisal, preparation and guiding of the approval and translation
of project documents as well as training and support of CBOs and groups in
the formulation of Community Action Plans (CAPS) and Group Action Plans
(GAPS) project proposals. It also supports to conduct evaluations of
community and donor supported projects/programs for advising on more
future success and facilitates different PRAs sessions at grassroots
levels.
Contact Persons:
| Mr. Mwadhini O. Myanza | Mr. Samuel Zongolo | Mr. Elikira Kweka | ||||
| Director | Assistant Director | District Coordinator | ||||
| IRTECO Headquarters, Moshi | IRTECO Headquarters, Moshi | Lushoto District |
E-mail IRTECO
2005 Newsletter Year-in-Review:
Skillshare Issue 02 (pdf, 534.35 Kb)