The food value chain development project in Tanzania:  a theory-based impact evaluation

2019

We are evaluating an aid project in the southern parts of Tanzania called the Food Value Chain

Development Project. The project objective is to help farmers increase the quality and quantity

of their produce to able the farmers to sell their produce to a high-end market. To able framers to

meet the high-end market demands, the project aims to organize groups of farmers into

businesses. Our research questions are based on these producer businesses (PB), what extent

functioning PB has been established, what extent these PB have been connected to high-end

markets and if these activities have resulted in higher income among the farmers. During the

implementation of the project the pigeon peas market collapsed, this collapse impacted many of

the farmers involved in the project. We therefore have a research question about the extent the

project participation helped the farmers adapt to the collapse. To answer these research

questions, we travelled down to the project area and conducted qualitative interviews in three of

the eight districts who has been part of the project. In our evaluation, we have used Howard

White’s theory-based impact evaluation approach to give a better understanding of why

interventions have succeeded or not. The results of our study have been mixed. There are some

PBs who have been well established and are functioning well, while other PBs are barely

operating. Only three of the PBs have been able to reach high-end markets and only half of the

PBs we talked to have sold after they became part of the project. The project has in other words

not been able to connect most of the PBs to high- end markets. 24 of 50 farmers we interviewed

said their income had increased as a result of training and/or sales to better paying markets. The

farmers adapted variously to the pigeon peas collapse based on how dependent they were on

pigeon peas. Only a few of the farmers we interviewed said that their participation in the project

helped them adapt to the collapse.