A fine pineapple harvest, despite drought

By Sizarina Hamisi, Tanzania and Uganda Communications Officer

December is the season for pineapple in Tanzania, and as I write the fruit is readily available in every corner of Dar es Salaam.

On this day, we (myself and Tanzania Country Director George Mkanza) are scheduled for  a monitoring visit to Farm Africa’s pineapple project in Bagamoyo district, 72 kilometres North of Dar es Salaam.

We set for our destination in the morning and our first stop is at the Local Government Office in Bagamoyo town. Here we meet the focal person for the project, Hamza Suleiman. Hamza works with 600 farmers in the villages of Kiwangwa and Fukayosi. His role involves coordinating trainings, marketing events and linking the farmers with other stakeholders in the pineapple value chain in collaboration with Dort Africa, a recipient of Maendelo Agriculture Entreprise Fund (MAEF).

The target for this project is to reach 1,000 women farmers with an aim of increasing their income from pineapple sales. The project coordinator from Dort Africa, Asumpta Nalitolela who joined us for the visit informed the group that before the project started, the farmers used to harvest an average of 10 tons of pineapple per hectare, although the potential for the same farm was 100 tons per hectare.

With this information at hand, we continue to the farms at Fukayosi village. Here we meet Hamida and Siasa who are representing women’s group named Ufumakifu. They took us through the demonstration plot where there all sizes of pineapples. Hamida shares, “There have been drought in this area for three consecutive years, we have struggled to preserve the moisture content in the pineapple.”

In total 40 hectares of land have been planted with pineapple at Fukayosi village. Siasa, who has planted pineapple in her 1.5 hectare farm, says the pineapple took a total of 18 month since planting up to harvesting. Within this period there is weeding eight times before harvesting. One acre which has been kept well usually yields 20,000 pineapples (50 tons).

“So how will I know if the pineapple is sweet by just looking at it?” Mkanza threw a question to Hamida. With a broad smile in her face Hamida replies, “The pineapple should be shiny and big”

Siasa shares more good news that, this season she have been able to sell pieces of pineapple for twice the price that she could last season, Tsh1,000 instead of Tsh500. Furthermore the group have been trained to dry pineapple to add value and shelf life for the fruit. One kilogram of dried pineapple can be sold for Tsh5,000 at the local market.