Improving Community Livelihood Through Rice Value Addition

The proposal on promoting value addition to rice for contributing in increasing income and poverty reduction in Kilombero by installing rice milling plant in Kamwene came up as an idea from the village community which was obtained after conducting Community Needs Assessment (CNA) which was done with Kamwene village community in Kilombero district. Prior to project intervention, the CNA exercise was conducted which came up with the community needs and problems. In the hierarchy of problems, the main problem which was listed by the community which faces majority of community members in Kamwene Village was the prevalence of income poverty. Among other activities Kamwene community members do engage in rice production as their food and cash crop which contribute to their household income for income poverty reduction. However, rice producers have been facing market problem for their produce and low prices. Under this study were three objectives which are set to facilitate the process of solving the problem, these are: To improve farmers’ awareness on the importance of value addition to their crops/paddy. To facilitate availability of capital for farmers’ investment in the value addition project. To ensure operation and sustainability of value addition project. The project has planned to achieve three objectives namely: One objective has been achieved partly which is to facilitate availability of capital for farmers’ investment, farmers have acquired land for establishing milling machine. The construction process has begun by dinging foundation and the work is going on well which will lead to successful implemented. Another activity which has started in collecting shares in form of crops/paddy