Growers in Mbeya city have great hopes for the actions of the Tanzania Food Processors Association of Women Entrepreneurs (TAFOPA) which strives to establish 50 micro-, small and medium industries in a five-acre plot offered by Mbeya regional-council.
According to Renatus Lembileki, a retired agronomist and a part-time grower of cabbages and avocados, claims the COVID pandemic created “a yawning emptiness in east, central, southern African, European and American markets. People out there want products, not rhetoric.”
TAFOPA, 
backed by the Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF), is busy establishing industries and cold rooms to process horticultural products for local and external markets in the secured plot. A Swiss organization, HELVETAS, has thrown its weight behind the project.
TPSF Chairman Angelina Ngalula said they were keen on the project because, she said, other stakeholders in the project were equally enthusiastic and serious. “We look forward to replicating this kind project in other regions. That is our ambition, that is our hope.”