projects

small scale agriculture

The Pemba Foundation supports Pemba's farmers by: designing and installing small, efficient drip irrigation systems; introducing higher-value crops like passion fruit; and developing vanilla production and export.Scroll down for details.

irrigation:

Nassor, left, from Pemba Foundation and Bakar, center, visiting Ali's farm to design his new irrigation system. 
Bakar received his system in 2014 and now advises other farmers for the Foundation.

Pemba has good farmland, but yields are severely limited by the 6-month dry season. With abundant groundwater, recharged during the rains, Pemba is an ideal place for irrigated agriculture. But as domestic water networks develop, groundwater demand is growing fast, so it's essential to use water-efficient drip methods for irrigation. Most farmers cannot afford to invest in irrigation, and we receive many requests from all over the island for help. 
A Pemba Foundation program helps farmers install drip irrigation: we design systems, provide the materials and advice, and the farmers contribute the labour for well-digging, land clearing and equipment installation. To date we have designed and installed systems on twelve farms. Most systems use a conventional petrol-powered or electric water pump. We would like to install pumps that use renewable energy, like an innovative low-tech wind pump designed by EMAS, a Bolivian rural-technology organisation. We fabricated one locally and tried it out on one farm. So far though we have not been able to find a system that's as cheap and reliable as conventional pumps. In 2021 we plan to try a new solar-powered design from Kenya.
Our systems use our own design of drip emitters: they're effective, easy to clean and cost much less than commercially available designs. 
In addition to subsistence crops, some farmers are growing, at our suggestion, passion fruit for cash.  It's a non-traditional crop, and brings good prices in local markets.
The potential of irrigated agriculture in Pemba is demonstrated by the success of Bakar Hamad Said, one of the first farmers for whom we built a drip irrigation system, in 2014. Bakar now harvests 40 kg of passion fruit every 2 days.  Wholesalers come to him to buy at $1/kg, and because his plants are protected from the dry season it's year-round income.  He's added a watermelon field to take advantage of spare pump capacity, and is building a house on his farm for a worker and family.  Bakar's 3-acre farm before irrigation made about $3/day, which had to support a family of 7 plus 2 dependents, and also help extended family members -- way below the usual poverty line of $1-2/person/day.  With irrigation, the farm yields $12/day, which lifts Bakar and his family out of poverty. 
Bakar has become a skillful and successful farmer and businessman. He taught himself how to get the best out of irrigation, and how to market his produce. Now he's an agricultural adviser in the Pemba Foundation's small business loan program.
We'll continue to install as many drip systems as funding allows -- Pemba could use literally hundreds of small systems like these. And in 2021 we'll be starting farmers' meetings to swap information on how to get the most out of irrigation.
Our irrigation program was founded by a volunteer, Jeroen de Boorder, profiled below.

Bakar with 2 of his 5 children.
Bakar's farm is productive in the dry season.
Bakar with mature passion fruit vines.
Storage tank feeds into irigation pipes in Bakar's Pemba Foundation installed system.
Bakar with one day's passion fruit harvest.
Omar Mshindo from Zanzibar Water Authority visits Bakar's farm.
Bakar explains the irrigation system's details.
Passion fruit flowers.
We designed a system for the steep slopes of Khulfan Said's farm.
Khulfan with his high-yielding passion fruit vines.
Intercropping to take full advantage of irrigated land.
New tank and pipes on Ali Amour's farm. Passion fruit grow on the slope to the left, red peppers in foreground.
On Ali Amour's farm, soon to be an irrigated passion fruit field.
Nassor from Pemba Foundation watches Ali Amour starting his new pump.
Pemba Foundation agriculture adviser Jeroen de Boorder orders bee boxes from local carpenter, with Nassor (center), Foundation executive director.
Bee box near passion fruit field ensures good pollination.
Supply pipe feeds drip lines spread across the field.
The posts will take root and be termite-resistant.
Passion fruit seedling.
Trialling the EMAS wind pump, which local mechanics built for the pemba Foundation.
Wind pump borehole is to the left of the bucket.
US Tanzania embassy's Virginia Blaser presents irrigation funding award to Pemba Foundation's Nassor Marhun.

vanilla:

Vanilla vine growing in a Pemba forest.

Vanilla is a non-traditional crop for Pemba, introduced to the island by an aid program in the 1990s.  But vanilla is a demanding crop to grow and was not widely adopted.
Vanilla is a vine that needs good rains during its growing season, warm conditions as the pods mature and a shady forest environment -- just right for Pemba. But it's labor-intensive: outside its native central America, so its flowers have to be hand-pollinated, day after day as each one opens. And then after harvest the pods must be cured slowly in the sun, a few hours a day for two months. Finished vanilla sells for high prices, but no farmer can risk the time and labor to produce it unless there's the certainty of a market at the end of the process.

Yet vanilla has the potential to greatly increase income for any farmer with access to some forested land -- which many Pemba farmers have. And Pemba vanilla is some of the best in the world.
Starting in 2014 the Pemba Foundation has offered to buy -- at fair prices -- all vanilla that Pemban farmers want to sell, for export on a non-profit basis to a UK online retailer.  

The Foundation also awards grants to farmers to plant new vanilla areas, and makes arrangements for experienced vanilla farmers to pass along their knowledge.  
The vanilla program is co-ordinated year-round by Pemba Foundation executive director Nassor Marhun (profiled below).  Nassor keeps track of the crop as it's grown and cured, takes care of contracts for crop purchases and new planting areas, brings new farmers into the program, and generally acts as the information hub for an expanding vanilla farmers' group.  
In several recent years weather has reduced the crop, but 2020 has been a success and the Pemba Foundation will export a record amount.

Profile: Jeroen de Boorder, agriculture and livestock adviser

Jeroen de Boorder, shown here in the passion fruit grove he started on the Tanzania mainland, created the Foundation's irrigation project. Jeroen is a veterinarian who spent eight years living on Pemba, where he worked on a number of successful agricultural development projects including livestock, beekeeping, and fruit and vegetable farming. Jeroen's wife, Saada, is Pemban and the family, now living in the Netherlands, visits the island frequently. He believes that irrigation is one of the most promising ways for Pemba's farmers to increase yields and incomes. Jeroen advises on irrigation, livestock and -- for the Foundation's business development program -- questions related to small-scale farming.

Jeroen is a volunteer who donates his time to the Pemba Foundation. 

Profile: Nassor Marhun, Pemba Foundation executive director

Nassor Marhun was born and raised in Wete, one of Pemba's three towns. He was educated in local schools, then took computer courses in Dar es Salaam, on the Tanzania mainland. He returned to Unguja, Zanzibar's largest island, to attend the Zanzibar Institute for Tourism and Development, graduating with a diploma. 
After working for several years in the tourism industry, Nassor became the Pemba Foundation's key Pemba-based administrator, organizer and manager. Based in Wete and working full-time for the foundation, Nassor travels throughout Pemba to check on our projects and manage grants. He stays in touch with vanilla farmers and handles purchasing of their crop; designs and installs irrigation systems on small farms; manages the foundation's construction projects; and works with the foundation's wide network of local volunteers and contacts, in government and the private sector.
Nassor speaks Swahili, English and Spanish. Reach him at nassormarhun@pembafoundation.org.

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