Mbeya, Tanzania
Biofertilizer Lifts Maize Yields for Mbeya Smallholders
25 January 2026
- +28%
- Average yield increase
- 85
- Acres under trial
- 52
- Participating farmers
First-season results from our Southern Highlands trials: digestate-based biofertilizer outperformed farmers' usual inputs while cutting their cost per acre.
“I gave the trial my worst plot, to be honest with you. It is now the field my neighbours come to look at.”
The Southern Highlands grow a large share of Tanzania's maize, which makes them the proving ground that matters for any input claiming to improve a harvest.
The trial
Fifty-two farmers across 85 acres ran side-by-side plots for a full season: their usual fertilizer regime against Tanzania Kwanza's digestate-based organic biofertilizer, with extension officers recording inputs, rainfall, and yields throughout.
The results
Trial plots averaged 28% higher yields than control plots, with the strongest gains on soils that had been farmed hardest, exactly where depleted organic matter had been quietly capping harvests for years. Cost per acre came in below the synthetic regime, before counting the soil-health gains that compound over seasons.
Why digestate works
Biofertilizer from anaerobic digestion delivers nutrients in plant-available forms alongside stabilised organic matter, feeding the crop this season and rebuilding the soil for the next. Synthetic fertilizer does only the first.
From trial to product
These first-season results are now shaping our commercial formulation and packaging for smallholder volumes. The farmers who generated the evidence get first access, at supplier pricing, because more than half of them also sell us the waste the fertilizer is made from. The loop, closing again.
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