News & Insights

David Leysenns joined Rikolto as Regional Director on 1st August 2019. Mr. Leyssens studied Communication Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB; 2004) and has an additional one-year training from Vlerick, called the Young Manager Acceleration Programme. While at Vlerick, David was an ambassador for the “follow your dream campaign”.

Rikolto started a programme in the beginning of 2018 to support private sector in Tanzania to expand pulses trade in and from Tanzania. East African Grain Council and Tanzania Pulses Network are the main partners in this programme.

In the often-crowded central market in the heart of Arusha, Baraka Mponda arranges his fresh vegetables ready for the buyers. He realises that more and more consumers are becoming aware of what they are buying and demand quality safe produce. Read how Rikolto is working together with the Arusha Council to improve public health and build an effective food safety system.

The Ugandan government is developing a new National Rice Development Strategy for the period 2020-2030. Environmental sustainability is a new item on the agenda. Our colleague John Ereng was invited to provide input on our experience in developing and applying the global standard for sustainable rice.

In the course of 2017 and 2018, while we rolled out several activities in our programmes areas in the region, we hit several milestones, sometimes faced a few bumps, but soldered on to report to you some. Open to read the whole report.

Rikolto's Rice Cluster members met in May for a week of field-visiting, cluster meeting and learning exchange in Uganda. During the six-day sprint, rice sector experts from Senegal, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Indonesia and Vietnam managed to complete a 2-day meeting to share insights, evaluate progress and explore strategic approaches to move forward within the rice programme.

Rikolto hosts 40 young people from the Uganda, Kenya, DRC, Tanzania and Rwanda in a workshop to learn more about food systems in East Africa and how to make them more sustainable. The workshop is organised in collaboration with Young Professional for Agricultural Development (YPARD), and is supported by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Are we romanticizing the economic potential of smallholder farmers? Does working on the inclusion of smallholder farmers in food chains increase the dominance of big business? These were the guiding questions in an exchange between Belgian funded NGOs, together with farmer organisations, researchers, national commodity associations and local governmental agencies in Arusha area, northern Tanzania.

Things that don’t change don’t grow and develop. You must change and rebrand yourself to fit in the new circumstances because the world is changing,” Hon. Christopher Kibazanga said. Rikolto, an Esperanto word for ‘harvest,’ had earlier been unveiled as the brand identity for the global Vredeseilanden/VECO brand. Quite often, different speakers found themselves intermixing the former and the new brands in their speeches, quickly acknowledging that a nomenclature transition was still happening.

Having started as a cashier about 3 years ago, Esther’s rise to the helm of leadership at the SACCO is affirmed by the growth the savings and credit group has experienced under her leadership.

For the last 10 years, the couple have been Onion Farmers, this being the major source of their livelihood.

For the last two years, Rikolto has been implementing a big project in Uganda, called Food Trade. The project linked smallholder staple food surpluses to regional markets. At the end of the project we noticed that farmers received 12% better prices for their commodities relative to the prevailing market prices.

Transforming food systems was the key theme at Mount Meru Hotel, Arusha, on 7 December 2017, where the new Rikolto brand was launched. Rikolto is the Esperanto word for ‘harvest’ and the Rikolto team committed to enable farmers to experience good harvests and to ensure great new ideas and solutions are harvested in order to improve food systems.

Colleague Jasmine Mushi, Agribusiness Advisor, shares the story of MUVIKHO, a Tanzanian cooperative of fruit and vegetable farmers which has grown from nothing to over 700 farmers in 4 years time, and now generates sales of over US$ 210,000 each year.

Michael Munah, Agribusiness advisor for VECO, takes you along on a field visit trip to Simanjiro area in Tanzania. Read how his work gradually contributes towards more food security in the area.

Indeed was unforgettable experience to most cyclists that will ever be told. Spending every single day of their time cycling, visiting VECO East Africa project, chatting with farmers, observing the natural and cultural beauty of the wilderness and sometimes encountering or standing face to face with wild animals like baboons and zebras

Just until recently 63 year old Emmanuel Mushi of Boro village in Kibosho Moshi believed that passion fruit wasn’t worth wasting time to produce leave alone making some cash on even by selling through the surrounding local market. This is due to the notion that the tree climbing vine was considered a wild fruit as the seeds would just be dropped on trees by scavenging birds which would later grow and bare fruits continuously with no agronomic efforts.

There is a Kiswahili saying that says “Kidole Kimoja Hakivunji Chawa” which translates to “One finger cannot kill a louse”. This is precisely the motivation behind (Muungano wa Vikundi vya Kilimo cha Horticulture (MUVIKIHO) which literally means a Union of Horticultural Producer Groups.

In order to tap into this potential market VECO East Africa supported farmers in participating and celebrating the International Year of Pulses (IYP), which was a two days Agribusiness Expo organized by the East Africa Grain Council (EAGC) on 24th and 25th June at Selian Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) in Arusha, Tanzania. The event primary focused at showcasing current innovations in the pulses value chains in order to realize more value and tap into new markets.

Photo editorial of our Rice Project in Lower-Moshi, Tanzania.

The Uhuru Torch wants to "bring hope where there is despair, love in the midst of hatred and respect where there is none." Each year, the torch is moved across different regions in Tanzania to celebrate exceptional achievements and inspire further development.

As a means to create more awareness about the projects of VECO East Africa, we have collaborated with VECO International to organize a 10 day cycling event, aptly called the Kilimanjaro Classic.

"As an individual you can easily be broken. When you are many, you are much stronger!"

The North eastern part of Tanzania has some impressive landscapes. With Mount Kilimanjaro in the background, the districts of Moshi and Simanjiro are home to acres and acres of beautiful agricultural land, interspersed with the occasional baobab tree.

“We started one year ago with just 15 farmers, now we have over 200 members. The future looks bright, because now we are also starting negotiations with retailers like Nakumatt, Tusky’s, Shoprite, Urban Wholesalers,…", says Joseph Awala, chairman of the Kwapa Farmers Cooperative. “

"There are two primary choices in life: To accept conditions as they are, or, accept the responsibility for changing them."

Last week the entire team of VECO East Africa (both Tanzanian & Ugandan colleagues) met up in Mbale, Uganda for the Regional Reflection Meeting.

In two weeks time, VECO East Africa will host a workshop in Kampala to disseminate the findings of a commissioned study on Agri-finance value chain models in Uganda and share lessons learnt.

VECO East Africa is proud to announce an official collaboration with the Africa Innovations Institute (AfrII), in a bid to jointly develop the emerging cassava industry in Uganda.

Recently, VECO EA underwent some major changes. Over the last months, our staff has been very busy implementing the new strategy and programs, opening new offices, and getting familiar with different work areas. However, the fruits of the hard work of the past are all but forgotten. That is why three of our colleagues found their way to the field, looking for evidence of the sustainability of the onion project in Simanjiro, phased out in 2012.