Tanzania Dairy Productivity Challenge Project

In Progress

Summary

The AgResults Tanzania Dairy Productivity Challenge Project is a four-year, US$4.9 million prize competition that aims to increase dairy productivity by encouraging private sector input suppliers to deliver inputs to smallholder farmers. By providing a prize for each bundle of high-quality inputs delivered, the competitions will increase animal productivity, boost smallholder farmers’ incomes, and strengthen value chain relationships between dairy producers and the formal dairy sector. Land O'Lakes Venture37 serves as the Project Manager.

The Challenge Project aims to improve dairy productivity and farmers' incomes.
Tanzania Dairy Project Timeline
Infogram

The learning journey

The Problem
Contest Design
Expected Impact
Actual Results
Learning & Evaluation

The problem

Low-Yield Breeds and Poor Management Practices

The Tanzanian dairy sector, which is dominated by smallholder farmers, struggles for a variety of reasons: approximately 97% of Tanzania’s dairy cattle are low-yield breeds, poor management practices are prevalent, and there are seasonal fluctuations in the availability of forage and feed. This precludes many smallholder farmers from accessing affordable extension or veterinary services. The lack of high-quality inputs, such as parasite control, nutritious feed, vaccines, and artificial insemination (AI), is at the heart of the problem.

Contest design

Theory of Change

The project is designed to incentivize private sector input suppliers to package and deliver input bundles comprising a combination of parasite controls, high quality feed or fodder, vaccines, and/or artificial insemination inputs to smallholder dairy farmers. By encouraging suppliers to provide input bundles and advisory services to smallholder farmers, the project will address a variety of current weaknesses in Tanzania’s dairy value chain. As farmers gain access to these materials and receive regular training, their knowledge of livestock management will improve as will their use of vaccines and health inputs, in turn boosting the nutrition of cows. Healthier and more productive cows will improve the quality of the milk, positioning smallholder farmers to participate more fully in formal markets. Accessing these markets will drive up smallholder farmers’ incomes and cement their relationships with key value chain actors.

Prize Structure

Increasing Prize Amount for Complex Bundles

Prize bonuses will be applied when competitors bundle one or more inputs. These bonuses aim to incentivize the development of partnerships between companies and help competitors more affordably offer inputs to farmers. These more complex bundles are expected to generate higher productivity gains for farmers.

Input Categories

Competitors must sell the following inputs directly to smallholder farmers to qualify for a prize:

Expected impact

The project is expected to engage private sector dairy input suppliers in Tanzania to deliver a variety of input bundles to smallholder farmers to increase milk production quantity and quality. By pairing these input bundles with required extension services, input providers will develop relationships with farmers and build sustainable networks to strengthen the entire value chain. Because bundles with multiple inputs will earn higher monetary prices, suppliers may create coalitions to package and deliver these complex bundles. As farmers continue to incorporate best practices and high-quality inputs, animal productivity will improve, and farmers will create links with commercial milk processors and reach formal markets. At the same time, rural households will have regular access to more nutritious milk for home consumption.

AgResults expects to achieve the following by the end of the project:

Actual results

Learning & Evaluation

What We’ve Learned through Implementation

This section shares our learning from the Tanzania dairy project design and implementation. Further details can be found in the Learning Library.

Recent News and Learning

Below are recent news and learning products related to Tanzania.
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Published: February 06, 2023

AgResults Tanzania Dairy Productivity Challenge Project Launches into Sales Period 4

On January 25, project leadership hosted an inform...

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Published: January 04, 2021

Request for Application for Competitors for the AgResults Tanzania Dairy Productivity Challenge Project

January 4, 2021 On behalf of the AgResults Tanzan...

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Published: February 20, 2020

Request for Proposals for Data Collection and Tracking Services for the AgResults Tanzania Dairy Productivity Challenge Project

February 21, 2020 The Secretariat of AgResults (“...

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Published: October 11, 2019

Request for Proposals for Sales Verification Services for the AgResults Tanzania Dairy Productivity Project

October 11, 2019 The Secretariat of AgResults inv...

Evaluation Design

For the Tanzania Dairy Productivity Challenge Project, the Evaluator plans to implement a quasi-experimental impact evaluation. This approach involves comparing smallholder farmers in target project areas (treatment group) with farmers in areas not reached by the project (comparison group) to assess the project's impact on adoption of improved technologies. The evaluation will also compare farmers who adopt the technologies versus those who do not to assess how the technologies impact dairy productivity, income, and dairy consumption. To assess the project's impact on the market for dairy productivity-enhancing technologies, the Evaluator is conducting a qualitative pre-post comparison guided by the structure-conduct-performance analytical framework.

Evaluation Stage

The Evaluator is currently carrying out baseline data collection, analysis, and reporting. The full evaluation design is complete and available here. Endline data collection will occur in 2024, after which the final evaluation report will be published.

Project team