J.10_FTF_Tajikistan_Extended_Season_Vegetables_Production_Scaling_Plan_July_2014.docx

USAID/Tajikistan Scaling Agricultural Technologies Plan Executive Summary Scaling Plan: Extended Season Vegetable Production Under Plastic

Focal Technology:

· Extended season vegetable production under plastic to increase the availability of nutritious vegetables during the lean season specifically addressing:

1. Early spring production; and

2. Late fall production.

· Significantly improve production practices of the existing greenhouses and expand extended season production to an expanded area within the ZOI.

Context:

Opportunities

· Expanded fall plantings for a third cropping season. Current production focuses only on an early spring crop.

· Excellent opportunity to provide women with more meaningful economic opportunities near the home.

· Containerized seedling production would be a “quick hit” to improve production in existing greenhouses. Seedling production is traditionally a women’s business. Containers would allow for a crop 10-15 days earlier than current bare root transplanting systems.

· Expand the geographic distribution of new greenhouses.

Constraints

· Lack of a well-developed supply chain.

· Open grazing of cattle in the fall season which can readily damage plastic structures.

Current Efforts:

· Nuri Khatlon, a local NGO, has continuing programs showing good results in commercial sized greenhouses. They received money in-part from USAID Family Farming Program and Finnish Development.

· Mercy Corps had a successful greenhouse project during 2011-2012.

· Historically approximately 1,000 greenhouses are in production around the village of G’ayrat near to the provincial capital and have been producing early vegetables since the Soviet era.

Path Forward:

· Implement scaling plan through a coordinated effort of current USAID projects with World Vegetable Center, Farmer Advisory Services Tajikistan, and Productive Agriculture.

· Implement through private sector partner, Sughd Agro Serve.

· Involvement of banking sector to provide adequate credit for expansion.

· Procurement of a new activity to further scale the chosen technology.

Focal Technology USAID will scale use of greenhouses by smallholder farmers with improved, furrow irrigation. The proposed greenhouses are approximately two and one half meter wide and eight meters long. It is then typical for small farmers to move up to larger structures of six by twenty-six meters on their own. Greenhouses offer a longer growing season and will be attractive to extended family groups of 3-6 women which are the norm in rural Tajikistan where 90%+ of households are actually extended families. The greenhouses will be located on the family plot which is much better for nursing women who are a target group of FTF in Tajikistan to facilitate breast feeding which is not possible from distant fields. Because Tajiks live in extended families it is felt that women’s workloads will be increased only to a manageable degree since the work will be spread to the non-traditional times of the year. It will also replace low wage employment on cotton farms which is currently as low as 20 cents per hour.

Greenhouse implementation will address nutritional gaps that are the root cause of stunting/wasting in the Feed the Future Zone of Influence. USAID will promote crop selection that addresses Vitamin A and iron gaps in the diets of women of reproductive age and children under two especially during the lean winter season when fresh vegetables are least available and dietary diversity is lowest. Focus crops high in Vitamin A will include carrot, spinach, red bell pepper, cantaloupe, squash, and tomato. Greenhouse technology was demonstrated and piloted by the USAID Family Farming Program and the USAID Productive Agriculture Program over the last five years. However, no attempt to further scale was made by addressing supplier development, which USAID intends to address as part of this plan.

Greenhouse technology is an easy, inexpensive transition from open field vegetable production because the farmer will continue growing crops in native soil. The technology is an entry-level transition for farmers new to growing under plastic and will provide foundational knowledge for farmers to transition to larger commercial greenhouses in the near future. Greenhouse production is a climate resilient technology especially in relationship to water conservation due to vastly reduced evapo-transpiration rates and growing season modification-- necessary interventions for increased food security in the dry temperate Tajik climate. Estimated cost per package including improved seed, pipe, and quality plastics is estimated at less than $250 per participating farm. It will be well adapted to existing micro credit programs.

Country Strategy Background Feed the Future Tajikistan is focused on western part (12 districts) of Khatlon Province, which has the highest rates of under-nutrition and the largest number of people living below the poverty line. Khatlon’s irrigated watersheds and cotton-dominated agricultural production are also suitable places to demonstrate the effect of water and land reforms, and agriculture diversification with a particularly strong impact on small holder farms. Khatlon province is located along the Afghan border; therefore improvements directly support broader U.S. efforts to stabilize the region.

Feed the Future Tajikistan will sustainably raise the income of over 20,000 households in selected districts in Khatlon province, as well as improve nutrition knowledge, food availability, and intra-household utilization of food. The strategy has three pillars.

Pillar one is assistance to household and small commercial farms to increase income and the production of food for home consumption, and support to improve nutritional and health outcomes.

Pillar two is building the capacity of local institutions and community-based organizations. Feed the Future Tajikistan will support public and private agricultural extension.

Pillar three is completion of effective agrarian reform in selected districts of Khatlon Province.

Supporting Pillar One, the development of fruit and vegetable value chains will allow rural households to increase their incomes to afford more adequate and nutritious food. Because of the limited overall amount of arable land and the large amount of labor available, Tajik smallholders should pursue intensive, high-value crops to increase their income. Although the data are limited, it is clear that fresh fruits and vegetable value chains are the best available option for this purpose. Fruits and vegetables are overwhelmingly produced by household and small farms.

Constraints and Opportunities USAID targets the input supply system as a key leverage point to facilitating adoption of new technologies which will improve production yields. This system faces fundamental challenges at multiple levels. At the demand-level, farms are cash poor and tend to utilize the cheapest inputs; they lack agricultural education; and they are distrustful of products in the market. At the supply-level, few input dealers exist and the market is dominated by cotton input suppliers that offer inputs on credit. The dealers that do exist lack the necessary agricultural background to help to advise farmers. These dealers sell only the cheapest goods due to both real and perceived market price sensitivity. Furthermore, there is a lack of productive equipment and services available to farmers.

The Government of Tajikistan supports development of the greenhouse value chain for domestic sale and export. Currently most greenhouse produce is marketed within Tajikistan and is not close to meeting demand. The Khatlon Region is 2-3 weeks ahead of the rest of the country and rapidly displaces imports as the production comes onto the market. Foreign buyers have also expressed interest purchasing.

Early vegetable production under plastic is one of the most successful diversifications in Tajikistan to date in displacing foreign imports primarily from Pakistan.

Numerous projects have piloted this technology and it has scaled somewhat spontaneously. The overriding deficiency in these projects has been in the failure to focus on establishing a supply chain of high quality inputs including galvanized pipe, ultra-violet resistant plastics, fertilizers, adapted seeds, and containerized seedling blocks.

This scaling plan primarily targets increased consumption of fresh vegetables by women of reproductive age and children under two. Though the production season will be extended, a winter season and an early spring lean season will remain with limited and very expensive fresh produce available in local markets. To offset nutrition deficiencies during these periods, USAID’s on-going Maternal and Child Health (MCH) project will educate women to improve the safety of home food preservation and promote improved food storage for winter. USAID’s MCH project will increase efforts on cooking demonstrations, including the distribution of “cooking shows” on DVD, and provide trainings on and promote solar drying as an alternative to home canning.

Potential to Scale Smallholder farmers will receive production and marketing training from the USAID Farmer Advisory Services in Tajikistan (FAST) extension system. The system will also facilitate linkages between farmers and input suppliers and buyers. Increased income is the greatest expected impact on a household. Building on USAID behavioral change activities, households can consume the additional produce and sell the surplus to purchase additional nutritious foods such as meat or dairy.

The technology will be scaled by an integrated approach of existing and new USAID projects. Initial work has been done in Tajikistan through the expiring USAID Productive Agriculture Project which has helped to establish a system of agro input dealers in cooperation with Sughd Agro Serve.[footnoteRef:1] The current USAID FAST project will provide extension services for scaling. A new activity will start in September 2014 with the World Vegetable Center that will exclusively support scaling plan implementation. The new USAID Tajikistan Agriculture, Water, and Optimal Nutrition (TAWON) project will further expand these efforts and is expected to start in the summer of 2015. [1: USAID’s Productive Agriculture Project will end on September 29, 2014.]

Pathways and Key Partners to Increase Adoption Extended season vegetable production has been widely and successfully piloted in Tajikistan and Central Asia by implementers furnishing inputs to a group of farmers. It has failed to scale due to the lack of development of an adequate knowledge base of the technology and development of the supplier chain for access to high quality materials from qualified suppliers. Tajikistan-based Sughd Agro Service Centers, which were assisted by USAID implementers in the past, have expressed interest to partner in the distribution of new seed varieties, bent galvanized pipe, black plastic mulch, containerized seedlings, and ultra violet resistant plastic adapted to tunnel production for a one-stop-shop in multiple locations. They have a strong record for implementing projects with USAID and carrying projects forward which open new marketing avenues for them. They conduct on-site training with regional experts, do on-farm demonstrations with private farmers, and publish their own newsletter, and were successful in promoting the USAID effort in early onion production. This is in comparison to current greenhouse material providers who are no more than vendors selling a roll of plastic sheeting, structural reinforcing steel, and other construction materials in the local bazaars. Sughd Agro Service Centers are well established and will offer a high degree of sustainability. An additional supplier will be identified to provide competition. Extension agents currently being trained through the USAID FAST program and the follow on USAID TAWON project will be involved in all efforts to share production knowledge with smallholder farmers. The Research Institute of the Agricultural Academy of Sciences will be utilized for demonstration and research.

USAID will organize 60 Water User Associations (WUAs) in the ZOI with an average of 300 members spanned across all of the districts in the ZOI by March 2015. WUA members frequently request additional economic opportunities. Since greenhouses have significant water conservation benefit, this technology is a good fit for association members. USAID will partner with WUAs to advertise the technology in their offices. USAID TAWON will demonstrate greenhouses at 3-4 locations within each WUA’s geographical area of responsibility and will partner with WUAs to encourage members to visit demo sites. WUA partnerships will increase reach and spread the technology through-out the ZOI.

Monitoring and Evaluation USAID’s FAST project, World Vegetable Center activity, and new USAID TAWON project will monitor and report on activities focused on dissemination of the technology and its adoption by farmers from FY2014 through FY2017. USAID’s TAWON project will conduct annual farmer surveys to collect information on technology adoption, consumption, income, and yield of participating farmers disaggregated by gender and crops. The data will illustrate the adoption of the new technology and its impact both on productivity of their farming in relationship to nutritional outcomes (from consumption) and income (from sales). To capture scaling, USAID will request the FTF midline and end-line surveys to ask whether or not households are growing vegetables under plastic. The midline survey will be collected in spring 2015 and the end-line in 2017.

Early Draft Indicators and Targets Indicator / Disaggregation

total w/one or more improved technology (this row is the total for this disaggregate)

New/Continuing

Sex

Joint

Association-applied

Type of organization (disaggregate if possible, or provide a rough indication of primary types of private enterprises likely to use the technology)

Community-based organizations (CBOs)

New

Male

Female

Joint

Gender considerations within targets: Of the existing greenhouses, an estimated 90% are male owned. These male owned greenhouses will be targeted for improved production practices. Of the new greenhouses, the focus will be nutritional outcomes in non- traditional production areas and the focus will be on women farmers. USAID FAST’s extension program has a strong track record of being able to reach women through their learning groups. This will be a primary vehicle for identifying women participants.

Consultation History An exhaustive effort was made to identify all the USAID implementers and international organizations with experience in this area. These include:

· Mercy Corps through their Nutritional Plots program under plastic.

· USAID Productive Agriculture Program

· USAID Family Farming Program working in cooperation with local NGO Nuri Khatlon

· GERES, the French NGO

· Welt hunger hilfe

· BFS-supported, Fintrac implemented scalable technology assessment

Procurement Plan To be designed in FY 2014 and awarded in FY 2015:

1. USAID TAWON, which will follow up to the USAID Productive Agriculture Project commercial agriculture activity and the USAID Farmer Advisory Services Tajikistan (FAST) agricultural extension pilot focusing on development of commercial value chains on the regional level..

2. USAID TAWON will focus on establishing farmer groups and provision of extension services to smallholders as well as facilitate the linkages of the groups to commercial value chains. Greenhouse scale up interventions within this activity will target smallholder production of extended season vegetables including technology transfer, information exchange, and marketing. The project will also facilitate the access of smallholder farms to high quality inputs and to markets Action Plan--Critical Steps

1. Finalize scope of work with World Vegetable Center in Tashkent, Uzbekistan for $591,147 buy-in using FY 2013 funding. The new activity will:

a. Advance seedling production technologies;

b. Demonstrate greenhouse technologies with new farmers;

c. Analyze vegetable markets within the ZOI and Tajikistan for greenhouse produced vegetables; and

d. Refine baseline data on greenhouse adaption to date in regards to location.

2. Include scaling-related activities within the Year 2 work plan of USAID FAST including:

a. Selection of farmers to participate in demonstrations of these technologies.

b. Promotion/adoption of those technologies through sustainable extension services

3. Incorporate greenhouse promotion into the new USAID TAWON project design documents to build on the initial work of World Vegetable Center and USAID FAST.

As of July 11, 2014