KilimoSmart

Kilimo Smart Initiative

KilimoSmart

KilimoSmart delivers tech-enhanced regenerative farming, boosting climate resilience and yields for smallholder farmers.

Lushoto, Tanzania

TZA

Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit

Climate change drives an acute agricultural crisis in Tanzania's Usambara region. Erratic rainfall and rising temperatures have degraded over 65% of local farmlands, directly slashing crop yields by 30% in five years and fueling a 20% annual rise in climate-induced crop failures. This localized crisis mirrors broader trends across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where over 60% of the workforce depends on agriculture. According to the IPCC, climate change could reduce key staple crop yields in SSA by over 20% by 2050, severely impacting the smallholder farmers who, the FAO estimates, produce approximately 80% of the region's food supply. In Usambara, this environmental degradation translates into a critical socio-economic crisis, marked by a 25% increase in food insecurity, disproportionately harming smallholder farmers, predominantly women. Contributing factors include widespread soil fertility loss – a challenge affecting millions of hectares across SSA – and limited farmer access to adaptive techniques and timely climate information necessary to navigate increasing climate shocks. Our solution directly confronts these intertwined challenges of severe soil degradation and the critical knowledge gap, enhancing agricultural resilience against intensifying climate impacts.

KilimoSmart combines specific regenerative agriculture techniques with a tailored mobile technology platform, already reaching over 24,000 smallholder farmers (80% women) in Usambara. Our solution restores degraded lands and boosts farm productivity. We implement push-pull intercropping using nitrogen-fixing Desmodium and syntropic farming incorporating soil-regenerating elephant grass. These methods directly enhance soil fertility, aiming to sequester an average of 2 tonnes CO2e per hectare annually, improve water retention, provide vital fodder, and target a 20% increase in household crop yields and incomes. Our next phase targets rehabilitating 300 acres. Central to scaling is our mobile platform, designed for low-resource settings. This technology delivers accessible training modules via SMS and an icon-based app. It provides timely decision support using local weather data and soil observations. The platform enables easy mobile data capture for monitoring progress towards goals like a 50% increase in soil organic matter, supporting adaptive management. It also fosters a digital peer-to-peer network, empowering farmers with continuous support to adopt and sustain these climate-smart methods.

KilimoSmart directly serves smallholder farmers in Tanzania's Usambara region, a community of approximately 210,000 farming families forming a key part of the nation's 3.5 million smallholder base. Women constitute the significant majority of these Usambara farmers, forming the agricultural backbone. Operating on the climate frontline, they grapple with severely degraded soils (over 65% affected), sharply declining yields (down 30%), and increasing crop failures (up 20% annually). These farmers are critically underserved; conventional agricultural support often fails to provide accessible, localized adaptation strategies or the timely climate information essential for managing environmental instability. KilimoSmart addresses these specific needs directly. By implementing regenerative techniques like push-pull and syntropic farming, we restore soil health and improve water retention. This leads to more stable production, targeting a 20% increase in yields and income, which directly boosts household food security. Crucially, our mobile platform overcomes traditional knowledge and access barriers, delivering simplified training modules and tailored climate/soil advice via SMS and an icon-based app. This empowers these farmers, particularly women, with the specific tools and knowledge required to build lasting climate resilience and secure their livelihoods.