Centre profile: TARI Maruku (former ARI Maruku) is one of the 17 TARI centres/sub-centres which is under the Ukiriguru centre. It is based in Kagera Region, North-western part of Tanzania about 12 Km from Bukoba town (Bukoba-Muleba road). It is a leading TARI center of banana research in Tanzania and collaborate with other TARI Centres in common beans, roots & tubers. TARI Maruku has a multidisciplinary team of thirteen professional researchers, four field officers, and two supporting staffs.
Centre history:
The centre was
established in 1948 as a coffee research station. Later on tea, bananas and
other crops, such as beans and maize were included. In 1989 the institute
established a Farming Systems Research program using on-farm research. In 1996
contract research was introduced, and the mandate expanded to include all
coffee/banana-based farming systems in Kagera and Mara Regions. Since 1997
adaptive research trials have been conducted with stakeholders in all districts
in the mandate area. TARI Maruku is currently conducting research on banana (mandate crop), beans, cassava, sweet
potato (collaborative commodities) and
providing clients with inputs such as seeds/planting materials and advice for
improved agricultural practices, processing, marketing and other related
information.
Departments: The centre has two departments namely;
(a) Research and Innovation Department
This is the department responsible for the development and evaluation of various technologies. It has three programmes, namely; crop research and postharvest management, agricultural natural resource management and engineering and socio economics and marketing programmes.
(i) Crop Research and Postharvest Management Programme
This programme is responsible for crops research, incase of TARI Maruku the mandate crop is banana while the collaborative crops are beans, roots and tubers and horticulture
(ii) Agricultural Natural Resources Management and Engineering Programme
The programme conducts research to address soil fertility improvement and soil moisture stress reduction for increased soil productivity and crop yield improvement in North western zone. Research activities in practice include; Soil and water management, fertility management, agro-forestry, land resource, laboratory services and agro-mechanization services.
(iii) Social Economics and Marketing Programme
The socioeconomics and marketing programme is one of the programmes which have the overall objective of integrating socioeconomic aspects in the research development. Thus the specific objectives of socioeconomics and marketing programme includes the following;
- To support other programs in ensuring high level of client orientation and demand driven research
- To take part in diagnostic surveys, Participatory Research Approaches, economic analyses, market studies, adoption studies and impact assessment
- To develop Marketing Information Mechanism
- To provide support to biological scientists in undertaking economic analysis and farm budgets to see whether the recommended technologies are cost-effective or not.
- To lead Monitoring and Evaluation of all research activities
- To conduct gender and household typology studies
- To conduct training on agribusiness and farm management to the target groups
(b) Technology Transfers and Partnership department
The
technology transfer deparment is mainly responsible with transfering
agricultural technologies generated by researchers to end user through varioues
pathways. The deparment tranlste the scientific messages into simple and
utilizable form which can be understood by end users. The form in which the messgaes
are translated into include fliers, brochures,
manuals, booklets e.t.c. The mediua used to reach end users are farmer
exhibition, field demos, field days, exchange visits, radion and TV programs
e,,t,c.