Conservation Tour to Tanzania—Sustainable Agriculture and Farming

Your 24-hour Tour Director will meet you at the airport and remain with your group until your final airport departure. Your group will have a private coach and driver while touring for the next eight days.

Arusha is a Tanzanian city located at the base of volcanic Mt. Meru in East Africa. It's a gateway to safari destinations and to Africa's highest peak, 5,895-meter Mt. Kilimanjaro, lying some 100 kilometers northeast. To the west lies Serengeti National Park, home to wildlife including lions, rhinoceroses, giraffes, and leopards. Annual migrations also feature huge herds of wildebeests crossing its plains.

Over the past few decades, food insecurity has risen in Tanzania. The country's population is increasingly expanding and making food security more difficult—the majority of the rural population survives on subsistence. This program explores the causes of this phenomenon as well as attempts to counter it. Participants will be exposed to Tanzanian agricultural and farming practices as well as the cultural, historical, social, and environmental aspects that impact them.

Your base for the night will be Arusha at the Outpost Lodge, where daily breakfast, lunch, and dinner will be included. Set in a spacious, low-density suburb, the beautiful grounds are shaded by African tulips, wild fig trees, banana, and palm trees. Outpost is a calm, friendly oasis away from the hustle and bustle of Arusha city life.

Enjoy a special welcome dinner with the staff at the Outpost Lodge.

"We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience." - John Dewey Every evening of the program, we’ll set time aside to update your Reflection Journal and share thoughts and impressions that have come up during the day.

Participate in an orientation meeting for relevant information and useful tools to familiarize yourself with the host country and the program ahead.

To start your time in Tanzania, you’ll attend a Swahili lesson to learn the basics of the local language.

The Themi Living Garden is a women-led community center and part of a project implemented by an Italian NGO, Istituto Oikos. It promotes sustainable gardening in Arusha as a way to improve nutrition as well as providing safe employment and income for people with disabilities and care-takers of the disabled. Set in a beautiful green space at the heart of Arusha, there’s also a restaurant offering a fresh, organic vegetarian buffet lunch, the first eco-restaurant in Tanzania.

Great African Food Company (GAFCo) is a for-profit, social impact business whose purpose is to help children out of poverty by improving the capacity of small-holder farmers to grow high-value crops for global markets. The profits are reinvested into a self-sustaining, self-replicating model that impacts an ever-growing number of farming families. GAFCo works in all segments of the agricultural value chain and in partnership with input suppliers, banks, insurers, NGOs, farming technology providers, and clients to connect Tanzanian farmers to global markets.

Seed Co. is the leading certified seed company authorized to market its seed varieties, and those developed by the government and other associated seed breeders, in over fifteen African countries. They have maintained a strong market share among communal and commercial farmers from years of intensive investment in research and development. The company is involved in the breeding, multiplication, and distribution of mainly hybrid seed varieties for maize, wheat, soybeans, sugar beans, cowpeas, sorghum, groundnuts, and vegetables.

Continue with your Swahili lessons as you acclimate to the local language and culture.

The East Africa Impact Centre (ECHO) functions primarily as a technical support organization, helping community development organizations and workers to operate more effectively by gathering solutions from around the world for hunger and disseminating them within an active network. These repeatedly tested, proven solutions promote sustainable farming techniques, nutritional plants, and appropriate technologies. ECHO's purpose is to enable global farmers, and those who teach and support them, how to be more effective in producing yields that meet their families’ and communities’ needs. Those teachers and farmers, in turn, teach others, and the ECHO effect continues.

Our ECHO partnership can provide participants the opportunity to engage with Tanzanian small-scale farmers and the surrounding community as they work together to prevent soil erosion. This is done through several methods, including the construction of contours and tree planting. By reducing soil erosion, the soil’s fertility improves, and the yield per acre increases, facilitating community sustainability. Your group’s work and the community’s engagement will create a rich cultural exchange where your group will learn more about the Tanzanian people in this area, their belief systems, faith, and practices. Your involvement, participation, and contribution will have an enormous impact on the local communities and will aid ECHO in their work in Tanzania.

Today, you’ll participate in a practical project at ECHO. The details and project template will be made available closer to the time of travel.

Located in the center of Arusha Town, Via is a lively café with a tropical garden that serves as a cultural meeting place. Start the evening with a lesson in local Tanzanian dance, and then dance the night away after a delicious Swahili dinner.

Kimemo Coffee Farm, situated on the outskirts of Arusha, is owned and operated by the Banister family.

Starting from Kimemo's Café, you’ll have an introduction to coffee and the Banister family’s personal history with the beverage. During the tour, you’ll be guided through the many processes the beans take from the tree to the cup. On your return to Kimemo's Café, the aromas of roasting and packaging premium coffee will fill your senses. Finally, you’ll watch baristas make a superb cup of coffee and let those taste buds come alive, leaving armed with a greater knowledge of coffee.

Today, you’ll travel from Arusha to Isoitok.

After the Serengeti, Tarangire National Park has Tanzania’s greatest concentration of wildlife, and in the dry season, the Tarangire River is a magnet for thirsty animals. Large herds of elephants, migratory wildebeests, zebras, buffalo, impalas, gazelles, hartebeests, and elands gather, and not surprisingly, the predators follow. It’s also the one place in Tanzania where dry-country antelope, such as oryx and gerenuk, are regularly spotted. Additionally, Tarangire is known for its spectacular baobab trees and breathtaking views of the Maasai Steppe as well as the mountains to the south. Located just a few hours from the town of Arusha, it’s a popular stop for safaris traveling through the northern circuit, on their way to Ngorongoro and the Serengeti. The park extends into two game controlled areas, and the wildlife is allowed to move freely between them.

Your base for the night will be Manyara at the Isoitok Camp, where daily breakfast, lunch, and dinner will be included. Isoitok Camp Manyara is set in a rich, savannah-bush location 1,075 meters above sea level. It backs to the Losimingorti Mountain Range, acting as a natural wildlife corridor from the Ngorongoro Highlands through Manyara Conservancy and into Tarangire National Park.

Enjoy a late-afternoon walk at Isoitok.

Explore Maasai daily life with a visit to a traditional Maasai boma (dwelling). Take a look behind the scenes and experience how the people of this nomadic tribe live. You’ll meet the Maasai elders, Moran (warriors), women, and children, and learn the status and rankings that exist within the age groups.

You’ll also experience the homes and exquisite crafts of Mto wa Mbu's many tribes when you meet some of the locals to learn about banana beer production, Makonde woodcarvings, and tribal painting techniques. This village provides great insight into everyday Tanzanian life.

Karatu District is one of the seven districts in Tanzania’s Arusha Region. It’s bordered by the Ngorongoro District to the north, the Shinyanga Region to the west, the Monduli District to the east, and the Manyara Region to the south and southeast.

Your base for the night will be Karatu at the Outpost Lodge, where daily breakfast, lunch, and dinner will be included. Country Lodge Karatu symbolizes simple country comforts. The lodge boasts a dining room and communal lounge with a fireplace.

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), measuring 8,300 square kilometers, is one of the few places on earth where mankind and wild animals harmoniously co-exist. The NCA became a Man and Biosphere Reserve in 1971 and was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979. Originally part of the Serengeti National Park, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) was formed in 1959, and the land is used in multiple ways: providing protection status for wildlife while also permitting human habitation. Its crater is the flagship tourism feature, a large, unflooded caldera that formed when a giant volcano exploded and collapsed some three million years ago. The Ngorongoro crater sinks to a depth of 610 meters, with a base area covering 260 square kilometers. Apart from the main caldera, Ngorongoro also has two other volcanic craters: Olmoti, famous for its stunning waterfalls, and Empakai, holding a deep lake and lush, green walls.

Return to Arusha for your final evening at the Outpost Lodge.

This evening, you’ll make the final entries in your Reflection Journal and share some of the most significant observations and perspectives that have taken shape throughout your Conservation in Tanzania Tour. We’ll also discuss how these experiences may be most relevant for us all as we return home.

Shanga is a successful social enterprise that employs people with disabilities to make unique, high-quality jewelry, glassware, and homewares by hand using recycled materials. These products are sold in Tanzania and all over the world, with profits being reinvested into the development of new products and increasing employment opportunities for disabled people.

Today, you’ll enjoy a special lunch at Jikoni. Jikoni, meaning 'kitchen' in Swahili, will allow you to enjoy traditional African cuisine in an open-air environment, where food is made with locally grown produce and combined with delicious herbs and spices.

Your rewarding and enjoyable Sustainable Agriculture and Farming in Tanzania program comes to an end as your Tour Director accompanies your group to the airport on your final day.