Empowering women and youth through Multi-crop Thresher Machines in Tanzania

Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and implemented by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT (The Alliance) and PABRA in collaboration with the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI), the initiative aims to support Imara Tech in promoting Multi-Crop Threshers (MCTs) manufactured by the company, specifically targeting women and youth in the farming community as service providers.

This is a continuation of PABRA's support for women and youth-led small and medium enterprises (SMEs), including Imara Tech, to scale up their businesses and, in turn, creating sustainable employment for women and youth in rural Tanzania. In 2019, The Alliance in collaboration with TARI and the Soybean Innovation Lab of Missouri State University, started training local artisans in Tanzania, including the youth-led Imara Tech, in the manufacture of MCTs, to reduce market barriers, alleviate the drudgery faced by women involved in threshing and winnowing crops, diversify enterprise opportunities, enhance livelihood prospects, and decrease pre- and post-harvest losses. Although still unable to fully meet the growing demand, over 800 MCTs have been sold to individual and group threshing service providers.

These MCTs are expected to save labor time, maintain grain quality, and address bottlenecks in the value chain of the nine crops. Currently, according to Imara Tech, Tanzanian smallholder farmers spend 1.35 billion hours and US$28 per ton to manually thresh their crops each year. The widespread adoption of these machines is projected to reduce labor time by up to 1.2 billion hours and decrease costs to US$15 per ton.

To support the rollout of this initiative, the implementing partners, led by The Alliance and Imara, began promoting threshing machines with farmer groups on July 23, 2024. These groups had placed orders following recent sensitization meetings, which included demonstrations of the machines' functionality, quality, and benefits. The meetings were attended by women and youth farmers' representatives represented their groups, and partners such as Farm Africa, The Agricultural Markets Development Trust (AMDT), and QSTEK in Singida, Ruvuma, Manyara, Mbeya, Iringa, Njombe, Songwe, Rukwa and Dodoma regions.

Dr. Justus Ochieng, the Project Coordinator from The Alliance and PABRA, who was present at the launch, expressed gratitude to all the farmers for their enthusiasm and commitment in placing orders for the machines through their groups

"The threshing machines are designed to ease the workload of women and youth, who are primarily responsible for labor-intensive tasks that consume a significant portion of their productive time. These machines will also create employment opportunities and generate income for these beneficiary groups, and the project will cover 50% of the cost of these machines to enhance their affordability," explained Ochieng.