Riziki Homange (40), a mother of five children this season is not worried of paying school fees for her children this year, thanks to the sunflower hybrid seeds, which give more yield to famers.
After she had participated to a demonstration plot managed by her cooperative -TUUNGANE and appreciating the performance of the new seeds. She took one packet of 2kg and tried the hybrid seeds distributed by Sunflower Development Company SDC in her 1acre farm.
She followed all the good agronomic practices as directed by the Ward extension officer easily since she had practiced most of them at their demo plot, which was not far from her farm.
“Passing by other villagers’ farms, I could tell the difference between the plants in my farm compared to those who planted local seeds. Within two months, I felt confident that I would reap more yields this time around even though rains had gone early,” she says.
In April, Riziki harvested her one acre farm and upon measuring, she counted 120 tins, which is equivalent to 18 bags (70kg each). Following the agri-business trainings, she has been receiving through her cooperative, she was tempted to witness the oil volumes that could be extracted from her produce. She went to process at Makambako town by herself instead of selling the grains to traders. She obtained 17 gallons (20 Litres each) and sold them to retail traders for Tsh1.2m (Tsh3500 per litre).
This is a better income she has ever had from sunflower farming business, since she was previously getting hardly 5 bags from the same one-acre land. “I must thank my husband for always being supportive of my endeavor, after realizing these harvest, we have since agreed together that we will expand sunflower farming to 3 acres in the next season using new seeds,” she added.
Riziki, is one of the 120 farmers, through their cooperative, who have tried and experienced the performance of the sunflower hybrid seeds this season in their locality. Through the support of AMDT, about 500kg of the SDC’s sunflower hybrid seeds was distributed to small-holder farmers in Wanging’ombe district alone for farmers to try and appreciate the difference in performance between the new seeds compared to local varieties. More farmers are willing to plant new seeds after having witnessed potential in increased yields and drought tolerance by these hybrid seeds.