Baseline Study for the EU funded Project in Tanzania; To certification and beyond: Market access for sustainable coffee, horticulture and tea from TZ 121 views0 applications

Project Background

Coffee, horticulture and tea products are among the most important export agricultural commodities in Tanzania. Tanzania’s main export markets are India, Japan, China, Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, Kenya, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. Coffee is Tanzania’s third largest export crop contributing 14.1% of total export value. The production in 2016 totalled 59,502MT, worth US$ 173.6 million (55% Arabica and 45% Robusta). The main Arabica growing areas include North Kilimanjaro, Ruvuma and Mbeya while those for Robusta include the Bukoba area of Kagera region. The horticulture industry in Tanzania is the fastest growing sub-sector within the agricultural sector with an annual average growth of about 9 to 12% per annum. This record of growth is more than double the overall annual growth rate of the agricultural sector. In 2015, horticulture contributed 38% of the foreign income earned from the agriculture sector. The exports in 2015 reached US$ 545 million, compared to US$ 64 million in 2005. The Horticulture sub-sector employs about 2.5 million people, which makes the industry a major player in the country’s economic growth and employment sector. Tea contributes more than US$30 million to Tanzania export earnings, making it the fifth largest export crop after cashews, coffee, cotton, and tobacco. The tea industry provides employment to 50,000 families and directly or indirectly benefits more than 2 million Tanzanians.

Global brands and retailers focus on sustainability as an integral part of their corporate social responsibility policies designed to ensure environmental, social and economic welfare. In many ways, the rise of Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) is a response to wider industrial and social transformation, and it has a growing impact on international trade. However, complying with VSS is not simple, especially for small and medium sized farmers, as it takes great effort and investment in people, infrastructure and institutions. Furthermore, the infrastructure and the public finance needed to support the compliance process does not exist. Often, this stops the majority of farmers from exporting to profitable markets in developed countries. Without a clear strategy and proactive support from governments and the international community, VSS run the risk of reinforcing of the walls that already shut out small-scale producers.

Project Objectives

The overall objective for this action is to address issues surrounding effective use of certification schemes and use of voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) to improve and drive market opportunities for Tanzanian “branded” sustainable tea, coffee and horticulture products. Solidaridad proposes to mobilize the value chain actors, including the government, research, private sector and the VSS service providers to sensitize and create awareness of smallholder farmers on sustainable production of high quality agricultural commodities, food safety, benefits of VSS mechanisms and eventual integration of sustainability practices in their business-as-usual model.

The Specific objectives will include: i) improving domestic, regional and international market access for Tanzanian “branded” sustainable tea, coffee and horticulture products; and ii) supporting the adoption of identified voluntary sustainability standards.

Project’s Target Group(s) and number

The project shall target individual farmers organised cooperatives for coffee, tea and horticulture. The target number is 21,000 smallholder coffee, tea and horticulture farmers with 52% being youth aged (18-35 years) and women in Mbeya, Songwe and Ruvuma, Njombe and Zanzibar (Unguja and Pemba) of Tanzania. Additionally, 200 cooperative workers from the 40 cooperatives and 8 tea factories will be supported to acquire technical skills and other best practices in order to enhance quality, reduce post-harvest waste and encourage resource efficiency and recyclicity. The project will train 120 extension staff from relevant Ministries, Local Government Authority (LGA’s), TaCRI, TRIT and HORTI-Tengeru to deliver Voluntary Sustainability Standard trainings to farmers.

Project Consortium

The project shall be implemented with Solidaridad East and Centra Africa together with: Tanzania Coffee Research Institute: A Government research body with a mandate to initiate, implement, promote and carry out research on coffee production, processing, quality, farming systems and husbandry of other crops associated with coffee. TaCRI has implemented three European Commission programmes in the past and currently works with Solidaridad ECA to implement her Coffee Resilience Program in Northern Tanzania.

Tanzania Tea Research Institute (TRIT); A Government research body that supports the development of both small and large scale tea producers through appropriate, cost effective, high quality research and technology transfer, to ensure the sustainability of the Tea industry. TRIT is well versed with practical technological innovation for the tea sector.

Tengeru Horticultural Research and Training Institute (HORTI-Tengeru); HORTI-Tengeru was established with the national mandate to support horticultural activities connected with training, research and extension on vegetable seed production and plant propagation. HORTI-Tengeru has experienced staff who extend training support to horticulture growers. Trainings implemented include on-site, on-farm and on-station training sessions.

Solidaridad Tanzania Country Office: Will carry out Country level implementation roles for the Certification and beyond project. The organization has been implementing programs in coffee, horticulture, sugarcane, cotton, dairy, gold and landscape management in Tanzania. We have a rich experience in promoting best practises and sustainable production, trade and market development for producers. Our programs in Tanzania focus on value chain development, food security, gender inclusivity, ICT, climate innovations, investment in viable businesses for impact creation while working together with governments, multilateral agencies, private companies as well as commodity producers.

Solidaridad Europe, Established in 1969 in the Netherlands. Developed Max Havelaar label for sustainable supply chains in 1988, and have garnered over 50 years’ experience on sustainable supply chains throughout the globe.

Justification for the Baseline Study

The project has clearly defined its targets and indicators in its log frame but baseline of several of the projected targets are currently unavailable. Therefore, in order to create the benchmarks, a baseline survey is necessary to come up with baseline indicators for each of the target set. These baseline indicators will be the guiding pillars to measure project’s achievements and outputs towards the end. This will also help devise appropriate monitoring tool for M&E of project interventions to reach the stated outputs & achievements. Furthermore, the baseline survey will generate and develop an information base comprising of the detailed relevant information of the general and targeted beneficiaries of the project’s working areas. This information will guide us to plan effectively and coherently in materializing the project goal in a systemic way.

Objectives of the Baseline Study

The main objective of the baseline study is to prepare a pre‐project / baseline information of the target beneficiaries as per the indicators of project objectives, specific objectives and expected results specified in the project document and the project log‐frame.

The specific objectives of the baseline study are the following:

a) To collect and analyze the verifiable indicators from the project log frame.

b) To collect and analyze the relevant information of existing situation of project’s targeted beneficiaries (including farmers, Cooperatives, and marketing boards among others), service providers, and/or related stakeholders.

c) To collect and analyze relevant information in terms of sources and level of income, farm productivity levels, marketing needs et cetera.

The study will utilize a wide range of appropriate tools and methodologies to measure the status of social, economic/financial, physical, natural and human assets of targeted farming households (HHs), market actors and market system components within the framework of the project and as spelled out in the project document. Solidaridad and its implementing partners will use the study findings in comparing pre and post project status of the market systems and farming communities with whom it works.

The relevant project stakeholders and donors will also use the baseline information.

Suggested Approaches and Methodologies

The study will be based on data and information gathered from both primary and secondary sources. Secondary sources would comprise relevant project documents, commodity sector reports, and Government reports. Primary data will be collected from sampled beneficiaries and market actors in all the project sites. The detailed methodology and field work schedule will be worked out in consultation with Solidaridad, partner organizations and the consultants during inception meeting.

However, the consultants will ensure the following steps:

a) Visit Country Office in Tanzania, and hold interactions with Country Manager, Program Manager, M&E & Communication Unit and the core team to be acquainted with project, its activities and the proposed work.

b) Prepare a detailed methodology including questionnaires for household survey and checklist for group discussion, focus group discussion and key informant interview as per the project document and project log‐frame (to be shared with successful consultant).

c) Pre‐test draft questionnaire and checklists and incorporate the inputs in final questionnaire and checklist.

d) Share and circulate final version of baseline questionnaires and checklist and incorporate comments (if any).

e) Prepare a detailed plan of action/schedule covering orientation to enumerators, field work, data collection, analysis, interpretation, draft and final report preparation with concerned project staff.

Responsibilities of Consultants/Scope of Work

The composition of the study team is left up to the consultant/ organization based on their internal system, ideas and logic. However, Solidaridad recommends that the team comprise one Team Leader (TL) to coordinate/conduct the overall study and liaise with Solidaridad. To collect information from the field, adequate number of Field Enumerators (FEs) will be deployed in facilitation of Solidaridad’s Project Officers at the Districts/Unions. Supervision of the field work and quality (reliability and validity) of the data/information collected from the field is the primary responsibility of the TL. The TL will direct report to the Country Manager Tanzania and work closely with Solidaridad M&E Officers and Project Manager. In each step and process, consultation with Program Manager are M&E Officer are vital.

The consultancy / consultant team will be primarily responsible to:

a) Develop/design baseline study including questionnaire for HH survey and checklist and tools for group interaction including FGD with target beneficiaries at District/Union/Village levels.

b) Share study design including process, methods and questionnaires/checklist with project team, collect feedback and finalize the study design.

c) Pre‐test questionnaires and other tools in one of the project sites.

d) Submit inception report.

e) Debrief/discuss with project team about effectiveness of questionnaire, checklists and other tools used in pre‐test, collect feedback and finalize them.

f) Orient, train and supervise the enumerators.

g) Carryout field work together with enumerators. h) Ensure the quality of information collected from fields, cross check with the validity of information collected and verify/revise where needed.

i) Update progress of the study on weekly basis to M&E Officer.

j) Analyze data and prepare quality report.

k) Give presentation of draft report to Solidaridad, and

l) Submit final report (a compiled version of the report ‐ both hard copy and electronic version in word format) to the project after incorporating the feedbacks and suggestions from Solidaridad.

Deliverables

The following deliverables are envisioned under this ToR:

a) Hard copy of the final Baseline report.

b) An e‐copy of raw data and final version of the report

Eligibility Criteria

The consultancy / consultant team should have experience on qualitative and quantitative research; clear understanding on research methodology and experiences on using different social research tools and techniques. Work experiences in the coffee tea and horticultural sectors in Tanzania will be an advantage. TL should have advance university degree in agriculture or rural development or social sciences with experiences of having conducted evaluations in agricultural value chains.