Worldveg introduces soil less farming to help farmers curtail diseases, effects of climate change -

By
Valentine Oforo

WORLD
Vegetable Center (Worldveg), the
Arusha-based international non-profit research and development institute with a
unique mandate in vegetables, has researched and introduced to the horticulture
growers in the country a soil less farming technology.

Being
impressive works of the vegetable mogul at the center’s special ‘Vegetech Hub’,
the introduced helpful farming methods is for assisting the farmers in the key agro
sub-sector to cheat diverse crop diseases, as well as negative impacts of
climate change.

Soil
less farming is a farming practice through which plants can be grown without
the use and presence of soil as a rooting medium, in which the nutrients
absorbed by the roots are supplied through the irrigation water.

Detailing
over the vital development for the betterment of the country’s horticulture
sector, Nickson Mlowe, an Agronomist at the Worldveg expressed that they have
decided to hatch the environmental- friendly technology after realizing that
majority of farmers in the sector were incurring huge loss due to crop yield failure,
propelled by diseases.

“Research
proves that most plant (crop) diseases originating from soil and the majority
of vegetable farmers in the country are not standing on a better financial and
technical side to tackle the naught diseases,” he expressed.

And
Mlowe communicated that the so far introduced soil-less farming practices are
useful and are not very expensive for the farmers to adopt in their greenhouse
plantations. He named the soil less farming methods as use of coco peat, peat
moss and hydroponics instead of using soil.

“These
methods are very meaningful and helpful to assist the vegetable farmers to
battle against several disease challenges in their fields, but also they’re
playing a vital role to assist the farmers to withstand severe effects of
climate change,” he insisted.

He
observed that the facility would continue conducting more research to assure
the farmers engaging into the vital economic sector in the country are
benefiting accordingly from their farming investments and efforts.

Executing
its top role through auspicious funds from International Fertilizer Development
Center (IFDC), the ‘Vegetech Hub’, mapped in Tengeru, a small market-town
located below Mount Meru, is designated for the research and rolling out of
helpful technologies for heightening performance of the horticulture sector in
the country, as well as Africa in large.

The
center is expecting to serve more than 2 million farmers next year to acquire and put into
practice different key technologies, including those based on soil health,
water use efficiency, fertilizer use efficiency, seed trials, post harvest loss
reduction, together with the other emerging value chains.

As part
of the robust development, the center has successfully managed to introduce the
vegetable farmers with the chameleon soil water sensor technology.

Dispensing
under the key theme of ‘Sowing Seeds, Meeting Seeds’ Worldveg which recently
celebrated 50 years anniversary of it excelling performance launched its
mission in 1992 in Arusha, Northern Tanzania and today the center has
professional research and development staff working across Africa on important
vegetable crops such as tomato, pepper, onion and cabbage, as well as a range
of African traditional vegetables, and partners with more than 40 national institutions
and many international organizations.

The
Center operates three regional bases in Africa: in Tanzania for Eastern and
Southern Africa, in Mali for West and Central Africa – Dry Regions (established
2014), and in Benin for West and Central Africa – Coastal and Humid Regions
(2017). There is a liaison office in Cameroon to reach into sub-Saharan Africa
with improved vegetable varieties and production technologies.