Egypt – Four Thousand Tons per Day

Helping Smallholder Farmers through Public-Private Partnerships

ACDI/VOCA has joined with the H.J. Heinz Company and USAID to form the Four Thousand Tons per Day Program, a public-private partnership designed to catalyze the potential for process tomato production and value-added horticulture in Egypt. This $7 million program, which will be implemented from March 1, 2008, until September 30, 2012, applies a market-driven value chain approach. It invests in the vast but largely unrealized potential of thousands of Upper Egypt’s small farmers to meet modern-day market demands for product quality and quantity.

ACDI/VOCA is strengthening horizontal and vertical linkages in the horticultural chain to achieve higher levels of productivity and quality by

• transferring appropriate technologies and best practices to smallholders
• encouraging information flows and partnerships to increase coordination along the horticulture value chain
• facilitating development of commercial business service providers in production, post-harvest processing and marketing

During the 5-year timeframe, the program will build the capacity of 8,000 smallholder farmers to profitably serve as reliable suppliers. This will be accomplished by increasing farmer organization; improving product quality and quantity through extensive training in good agricultural practices and targeted on-farm support; and developing sustainable linkages to the market and support services. Production planning, post-harvest and marketing services will be expanded to include high-value horticulture crops for export, grown in rotation with tomatoes.

The program is funded as a Global Development Alliance, a USAID instrument that brings together public sector, private sector and nongovernmental organizations in support of shared objectives. Funded by USAID and implemented by ACDI/VOCA, the project depends on the H.J. Heinz Company and its affiliates to provide technical expertise, training and seasonal purchase contracts for the process tomatoes. The program is named the Four Thousand Tons per Day program in reference to smallholder production targets and the expanded daily processing capacity of local plants owned by Heinz and its affiliates.

Targeted areas for intervention are Luxor and the governorates of Sohag, Qena and Aswan in Southern Upper Egypt; El Minya and Asyut in Middle Upper Egypt; Beni Suef, Giza and Faiyum governorates in Northern Upper Egypt; and the farms along the Cairo-Alexandria desert road and the Delta in Lower Egypt.

For more information, contact Anna Cuny at acuny@acdivoca.org.

Updated: 5/08