Approach and outcome

TVSP - Tanzanian Vegetable Seed Program

Approach
TVSP stands for Tanzanian Vegetable Seed Program, which has run from 2005 until 2007.
The main goals of the TVSP were:

Study the Tanzanian vegetable seed market

Select, improve and introduce new vegetable varieties

See how farmers respond to these varieties and new technologies

All of this was based on the success of a similar project with vegetables in Tropical Asia. Market-oriented variety improvement accompanied with farmer technology support became a recipe for farmer's income raise.
The improved varieties and modern production technologies resulted in secure production and farmers were willing to invest in new technologies and hybrid seeds, resulting in higher incomes.

The TVSP program has run from 2005 until 2007 by three partners, all private sector seed companies:

Rijk Zwaan

East-West Seed Company

Multiflower ltd.

Outcome
Varieties were selected and improved, new varieties are created and farmers have been trained with newly developed technologies. For a summary of TVSP, with pictures, please be referred to this pdf-document ( 13 MB).

Farmer Emanuel in Arusha is happy with tomato KARTIK F1