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New MEDA project to boost Tanzania cassava production

You can’t go far among the millions of subsistence farmers in Tanzania without encountering cassava. The starchy tuber, also known as yuca and manioc, is an important source of food and income in most rural households.

But cassava has fallen on hard times. Outbreaks of viral diseases have infected and destroyed plantings over large areas, creating a nutritional and economic crisis for the 80 percent of the population engaged in agriculture. In a sector where plantings have normally been handed down, field-to-field, there is currently no effective commercial way to replenish supplies of new disease-resistant stock.

A new MEDA project aims to address this crisis and boost long-term food security by rebuilding the fractured cassava chain. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the five-year project aims to disseminate new disease-resistant varieties and make them commercially available to 62,000 subsistence farmers. A key to its impact will be to pilot supply chain models to bridge the gap between the research laboratories developing new varieties, and the farmers looking for new planting material, says Lauren Good, who administers the project from MEDA’s new office in Washington, DC.

“We are working with two of the leading research stations in this first year to grow clean foundation seed and establish a multiplier business model that they can use again and again as new breeds come out,” he says.

The next step is to develop first-generation multiplication sites. This will be achieved by enlisting progressive lead farmers who will produce the crop only for the stem cuttings used to grow new plants, not for tuber harvest.

“We’re enabling them to be a business link in this chain,” says Good. “Then we will help these commercial multipliers develop a marketing strategy to second-level multipliers who would not only develop more stems but also grow and harvest the tubers for food or for sale. We want to build it into a commercial system beyond them just swapping with their neighbor.”

The anticipated result will be to develop a broad commercially-based cassava seed multiplication and distribution program that will demonstrate sustainable, replicable and scalable solutions for small farmers.

Good notes that doing so will involve some cultural shifts in how subsistence farmers grow cassava. Farmers typically plant from the same stock year after year. “It’s essentially been informal farmer-to-farmer selling,” he says. “But with the traditional crop under threat from disease, new stock has to be introduced, multiplied and made commercially available. We want to help people understand how to run a multiplication business, and show them it is viable to do so.”

The potential impact is huge, says Good. “There’s never been anything more than informal farmer-to-farmer selling here. As far as I know this is a first, not only in Tanzania but also in East Africa.”

Good says MEDA has been asked to arrange a public event in Dar es Salaam that will highlight a number of cassava research and value chain projects being funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Tanzania. ◆

What should pastors know about management?

A church isn’t a business but many pastors could benefit from a dose of organizational management, says Bob Fast, a senior bank manager in Winnipeg.

In his many years of church and denominational leadership he’s found that pastors may be well-trained in exegesis, hermeneutics and counselling but often have little exposure to management. “And yet,” he says, “if you want to have an effective organization, you have to know how to administer it.”

Pastors in southern Manitoba will soon get a chance to improve their organizational

Aeroplan donations offset MEDA costs

Do you have extra Aeroplan miles that need a home?

Now it’s possible to donate them to offset the travel costs of MEDA’s global development program.

MEDA recently launched its own Charitable Pooling page as part of the Aeroplan Beyond Miles website.

Aeroplan miles donated to MEDA will be used to offset employee travel costs. Each year, MEDA will also be able to organize a month-long contribution campaign and set a personal mileage goal. If the target is 90% met within 30 days, Aeroplan will contribute the remaining 10% to help MEDA reach its goal.

To donate Aeroplan miles to MEDA, go online to MEDA’s page on the Aeroplan site shown below and specify the amount you wish to donate. MEDA receives 100% of the miles donated. Visit http://beyondmiles.aeroplan.com/eng/ charity/210 ◆ savvy. Providence Theological Seminary and the Buller Centre for Business are offering a six-workshop series on church management. Titled “Nuts and Bolts for Pastors,” it will begin Jan.10 and continue every second Thursday. The time slot will be 9 a.m. to noon (instead of evenings) to suit pastors’ schedules. Sessions will be held at Immanuel Pentecostal Church, 955 Wilkes Avenue, Winnipeg.

The series aims to equip new pastors with basic management skills adapted to a church setting. Experienced pastors have also expressed interest in becoming more efficient in day-to-day administration, freeing up more time to concentrate on ministry.

“We’ll try to give pastors tangible tools to help them feel more confidence in the administrative part of their ministry,” says Fast. “They aren’t all wired this way.”

“In developing this series, we surveyed more than two dozen experienced church leaders and asked them what skills and knowledge they wish they’d had when they started in their first lead pastoral role,” says Bruce Duggan, director of the Buller Centre. “They told us they would have wanted workshops focused on planning, staff and volunteer management, publicizing their church’s activities, and on practical leadership tips. So we’ve built a workshop series around those needs.”

The series will be led by Fast, who holds an MBA and has spent more than 30 years with BMO Bank of Montreal, currently as Commercial Account Advisor. He has been involved in leadership at Whyte Ridge Baptist Church and is currently a moderator of the general council for the North American Baptist Conference. He will be assisted by Yvonne Thompson, president of Change Innovators, a leading human resources consulting firm in Manitoba and author of Leadership for a New World: The Organic Approach to Employee Engagement; and by Chris Banman, president of Orchard Road Marketing Group.

For more information go to http://www.bullercentre.com/ community/nuts-bolts-for-pastors ◆