Marudio Anderson, a young farmer living with albinism in Biturana Ward, Tanzania, started by renting one plot in the Biturana basins to grow onions. He now farms five, has opened a stationery shop and is moving into poultry, AGRA reports.
His start came through Martin Msabila, the ward agricultural officer, who introduced him to the Youth Entrepreneurship for the Future of Food and Agriculture (YEFFA) programme. It trained him in entrepreneurship, record-keeping, land preparation and good agricultural practices, and gave him improved seed and fertiliser as start-up support.
"At first, it was not easy, but I kept working to make sure I could earn a profit," he said. He now employs five casual workers. "I still feel that my farms are small, but I now have five people working on them," he said, adding that farming gives work to other young people as well as to himself.
Msabila said the young farmers trained under YEFFA have become role models, and that the government is helping organise them into youth groups so they qualify for local government loans to keep expanding.
Photo: Duniasikuzote / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: AGRA
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