Free Farmers from Poverty & Educate their Children

In preparation for the next vegetable production season in East Ethiopia, experts from Dire Dawa Bureau of Agriculture (BoA) came to a training day at Tony research centre in Dire Dawa.

The “hands on” training touched all the main topics of pre-season preparations, such as: choosing the best plot, preparing the plot for planting vegetables and building beds and furrows for tomato, pepper, cabbage and onion.

Thirty five experts and developmental agents from the extension department of the Dire Dawa’s BoA participated in the training, together with the extension management.

The seminar started with a theoretical background from Fair Planet’s agronomists, covering technical aspects of the cropping season, followed by a practical demonstration with active participation and hands on learning of the experts, who actually prepared tomato planting beds for the coming season.

The seminar was very successful, and the participants now are equipped with the necessary know-how to train their respective farming community around Dire Dawa.

As you may recall, we launched our first training season in the Morogoro region of Tanzania last season, working with 75 farmers from the Mvomero District to enhance their tomato production skills. In line with our model, the training was conducted directly on farmers' plots by Fair Planet’s expert team—comprising both Israeli and Tanzanian agronomists—in close partnership with the local Ministry of Agriculture’s extension officers.

This hands-on, field-based training approach empowered farmers from various villages within the district to implement improved agricultural practices tailored to their local conditions. Last month, following the completion of the season, we held a comprehensive evaluation meeting with the district’s agricultural experts and government officials to present and discuss the results.

The outcomes were nothing short of remarkable:

• Average yield among trained farmers reached 23 tons per hectare, compared to the local baseline average of just 1.2 tons per hectare—a nearly 20-fold increase.
• Ten farmers achieved yields exceeding 80 tons per hectare, highlighting the transformative potential of the training program when best practices are fully adopted.
• These yield improvements translated into significant economic gains. The average net income per trained farmer was 2.4 million Tanzanian shillings, representing a tenfold increase compared to the district’s pre-training average.

These results clearly demonstrate the power of knowledge transfer, targeted support, and cross-cultural collaboration. Most importantly, they reflect the determination and hard work of the participating farmers.

We invite you to join us in scaling this success and bringing real change to more farming communities across Africa.