The Real alternative: Marketing bio-technologies with smallholder farmers across Tanzania A case study of Real IPM in Tanzania

Real IPM was founded in Kenya in 2003 and mainly focused on servicing fresh produce exporters, including flower producers, with biological plant protection products such as predatory mites. AECF supported the company with scaling its production processes to enable it to more effectively reach smallholders.

In 2016, Real IPM established operations in Tanzania to provide biological products for smallholder farmers and was further supported by AECF in the development of innovative bio-coatings for seeds.

The business model aims at improving smallholder agricultural productivity, reducing production costs, ensuring food safety and sustainability by introducing bio-agents as solutions to address agricultural challenges faced by smallholder farmers in selected agricultural value chains of fresh fruits and vegetables, grains/cereals (especially rice and maize) and flowers. The innovation addressed crop protection, crop nutrition, and sustainable climate-smart agricultural (CSA) challenges through solutions that work for smallholder farmers.