icp logo with sponsors
Tanzania

Tanzania

International Coffee Partners in Tanzania

Coffee is Tanzania's most important crop, indirectly providing a livelihood for about six to seven percent of the country's total population. Most coffee farms, however, are small and the farmers are struggling with low productivity levels for both cash crops and food crops resulting in inadequate levels of income. We have been working with 25,000 of these smallholder families in Northern and Southern Tanzania since 2006. Currently, ICP is active in the Mbeya and Songwe region.

The interventions of ICP have supported smallholder families to:

  • develop business orientated, member-driven and democratic farmer organizations,
  • increase coffee and food crop production sustainably while improving crop quality,
  • test adaptation tools for smallholders to mitigate the impacts of climate change,
  • promote joint decision taking on household levels and
  • develop business options for youth in rural areas.

Achievements Since the First Project Started

41,744

Total households reached since 2001

10,668 ha

Impacted farmland in current phase

65 %

Adoption rate for Good Agricultural Practices in 2022

98 %

Climate-smart agricultural practices adoption rate in 2022

47 %

Rate of women in project activities and trainings in 2022

477

Number of supported farmer organizations in 2022

Current Project Phase

We aim at empowering smallholder families to increase their resilience to climate change by

  • upgrading and professionalizing farmer organizations,
  • modernizing and diversifying production systems in a sustainable climate-resilient way,
  • developing climate-change adaptation practices and using digital tools,
  • gender mainstreaming with all project activities,
  • creating economic opportunities for youth and supporting them in taking up active roles in their communities.

Our current project phase targets 4,000 smallholder families and 390 youths in Southern Tanzania (Mbeya and Songwe region).

We facilitate our climate-smart agriculture trainings through the initiative for coffee&climate (c&c). The aim is to build skills and provide methodologies to assess climate change risks and plan for mitigation and adaptation strategies. The project has linked farming families to service providers to foster climate-smart household practices including energy-efficient cooking stoves, domestic rainwater harvesting and alternative energy sources. Furthermore, we promote digital technologies to support the farming families to exchange on weather information and climate change adaptation practices. Also, we are establishing c&c demo plots to showcase climate change adaptation practices.

ICP in Tanzania – Meet Emil Augustino Mzumbwe

In 2001, ICP launched its first project in Mbeya, Tanzania and over the years have driven numerous joint initiatives in the country. These projects have reached more than 15.000 coffee farmers. One of them is Emil Augustino Mzumbwe. When Emil and his wife Lugano Kibona joined the project, they could only manage to get 1.5 tonnes of parchment coffee. Since then their harvest kept on increasing season after season. Check out the video below to find out how and why the ICP project was able to improve their farming business.