The Rural Voice, 2019-06, Page 40more likely to be engaged in unpaid
care work, toil in informal economies
and in vulnerable employment.
Using his engineering, extension
and farming skills to volunteer with
Soloine Agricultural University,
Hilborn’s goal was to work with an
agribusiness partner to introduce the
broad use of drip irrigation systems
for better and more consistent crops
from small-scale horticultural
operations.
“I knew from the onset there were
many differences,” he said. “For
example, tilling on acres of land is
done by hand. Equipment is hard to
maintain. Corn, with the exception of
one field, is manually planted. For
every acre of corn grown in Oxford
County, you need to grow more than
nine acres in Tanzania to get the
same yield.
“My reception was gratifying.
People were eager to learn and
familiarize themselves with new
ideas. I met, talked with and worked
with many who became, not just my
working colleagues, but my friends. I
travelled to Morogoro (one of his
home stations) and to the country’s
largest city Dar es Salaam. A great
deal of focus is on Tanzania’s youth,
as they provide the hope for a bright
future.”
With so much to see,
consume and comment on,
from day one he began
regular as clockwork Facebook posts
under the title Don Hilborn Tanzania
Adventure. The subject matter is
timely, thought-provoking, wide-
ranging and pertinent to both the
author and reader. Some projects and
observations:
• SUGECO (Soloine University
Graduates Entrepreneurs
Cooperative) has 1,000 acres of
undeveloped land available for youth
to start family operations.
• The work of nutritionist Jolenta
with the orange-fleshed sweet potato
(OFSP) is innovative.
• Only 0.2 per cent of the 2.4-
million livestock farms in Tanzania
have biogas plants so SUGECO aims
to become a training centre for this
technology.
• Around Morogoro, primary
cultivation is by hoe or disk plow and
there is very little herbicide used.
• Hilborn worked with John, a
SUGECO innovator on his
fish/lettuce system called
Aquaponics.
• A hot dehydration greenhouse is
the opposite to Canadian systems.
“About 70 per cent of Tanzania’s
population lives in rural areas but
youth are migrating to the cities,”
Hilborn said. “The government wants
to encourage them to work in
agriculture so there is a general large
scale push on that through all sectors.
“As a result, there is a move to
make agricultural sectors more viable
so it in turn becomes more attractive
to young people. Focusing on
positive aspects of a changing
industry like improved technology
and the growth in greenhouses, the
goal is to showcase the work not just
36 The Rural Voice
The Tanzanian people were eager to learn and familiarize themselves with
new ideas, says Don Hillborn, who spent three months in the African
country with World University Science of Canada organization.