Maize-Nutrient-Manager: Training workshops, Songwe Regions, Tanzania

Kilakila MK, Andersson J. 2020. Maize-Nutrient-Manager: Training workshops, Songwe regions, Tanzania. Wageningen, The Netherlands: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

Between 11 and 25 November 2020, several workshops were organized in Vwawa (Mbozi district) and Momba (Momba district), in the Songwe region of Tanzania. The workshops trained government extension workers in the use of the Maize-Nutrient-Manager (MNM) (version 2) mobile phone application for field-specific nutrient management advice. Forty-nine extension workers were trained, 38 and 11 from Mbozi and Momba district, respectively. Among the trained extension workers, 26 had participated in similar workshops in 2019. The training enables extension workers to provide fertiliser management advice for the upcoming 2020-21 season.

Next to providing field-specific nutrient management advice, the MNM application collects detailed field- level management data, including yields achieved in the previous seasons. This data is used to analyse of the effects of management practices and previous MNM advice on fertiliser use efficiency. For this year, the MNM will generate new advice for farmers and record the outcomes of previous season’s MNM advice. This will complete data collection for the 2019/20 season.

The MNM training workshops were jointly organised by Wageningen University (WUR) in the Netherlands, the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI)-Uyole, and the District Agricultural, Irrigation and Cooperative Officers (DAICOs) for Mbozi and Momba districts.