News & Events | mesula

Seed Award 2014

MESULA - MERU SUSTAINABLE LAND LTD, has recently won an international award for small companies promoting social, environmental and economical sustainability for African countries.

MESULA, which is the organizer of the Arusha Farmers Market supported, by the NGO Oikos East Africa, is proud to be one of the four Tanzanian winners of this Award.

Awarded companies will be supported by a team of professionals to scale-up and give a sustainable structure in order to keep on providing good services for final customers, creating entrepeneurship, protecting the environment and the fragile economies of Tanzanian rural areas.

MESULA would like to thank all friends, followers, partners and governmental institutions involved in the activity. Your support is the reason of our success.

www.seedinit.org

Seed Awards Africa is Funded by European Union

News and events:

1st Anniversary of the Arusha Farmers´Market

It is a pleasure to celebrate our 1st Anniversary of the Farmers´Market with you.

Come to buy food, meet people and organisations involved in the change!

Our market is a place where you can get ideas on sustainable agriculture, good quality products and short value chains. NGOs, companies, public authorities and final customers are all involved in this process!

Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) training

The concept of Internal Quality Management Systems is introduced in the project as a step towards assurance of organic products integrity to consumer.

A total of 19 MESULA farmers were trained by an expert from TOAM organization (Tanzania Organic Agriculture Movement) for one week in November 2014 at Mkuru training camp, in Uwiro village.

Jam, Jelly and Chutney training at Mkuru Training Camp

Food preservation is a leading cause of food insecurity in developing countries, in Tanzania up to 60% of fresh vegetables and fruits go spoiled mostly due poor know-how on preservation techniques.

A group of women of King'ori village were trained in August by AVRDC and Palloti jam group, about how to process fruits and vegetables at Mkuru Training Camp, in Uwiro village.

ZECCs (Zero Energy Cooling Chambers) are brick chambers that work thanks to the refreshing properties of evaporation. It is a simple but helpful physical process: when water slowly evaporates, it brings with it heat, thus keeping the chamber cool (15 - 16 °C). A layer of sand is put between two small brick walls, and water is put into it.

The chamber that was built has a capacity of six crates (useful for tomatoes, cucumber, squash, eggplants and many other vegetables) and is covered with a polyethylene sheet, protected by a removable makuti-leaf top. 4 women and 3 men were trained on how to build a chamber and disseminate the idea among neighbours. A small amount of water guarantees a fresh temperature for days. A low cost and eco-friendly opportunity for any small-scale farmer.

ZECC Training: preserving food in rural areas

MESULA has a shop in town. We are gathering the production of trained and skilled farmers that have been producing organic for a long time, but had few market opportunities.

We are keeping on training other farmers and experimenting new organic cultivations.

Come and try our organic and fresh products, brought straight from the farms to you!

The shop is located in the compound of Oikos East Africa, Haile Selassie road, plot 165, house n° 12.

Open from Monday to Friday from 10 am to 4 pm and Saturday from 10 am to 2 pm.

Mesula Shop !

Training in Organic Farming and Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) to a new group of farmers in Tengeru

A new group of farmers that join to Mesula recently was trained in basics of organic farming. This training was done at the farm of one of our farmers in Tengeru last May.

After this three days training, this group recieved also the PGS training the next weekend at Mkuru Training Camp by an expert from TOAM organization (Tanzania Organic Agriculture Movement).

Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) training (Second part)

On 23rd and 24th of March, the group of farmers that received the PGS training in November, took the second part to complete this informal education.

A total of 19 participants were trained by an expert from TOAM organization (Tanzania Organic Agriculture Movement) in these topics: organic methods of soil, enrichment and pest & disease management, market and marketing. On the other hand, all Mesula´s project workers were also trained in internal quality management system.

Installing agronets with the farmers

Since there was an important pest in the last crops, with the loss that this causes for the farmers, we have decided to install some agronets to face this problem in order to prevent it for the next crops of tomatoes, zucchini and broccoli.