Abeli Naftari Kiswaga
Mbeya
Summary
Dynamic agribusiness professional and agronomist with over four years of experience enhancing agricultural practices for smallholder farmers and estates, particularly in beverage and horticultural crops. Proven track record in implementing sustainability standards and managing multinational agricultural projects funded by esteemed organizations such as USAID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Expertise in improving farmers\' livelihoods through the adoption of Good Agricultural Practices, Climate Smart Agriculture principles, and access to essential resources, resulting in increased productivity and product quality. Currently contributing as a Sustainability Associate at Twende Shamba Tanzania Limited, overseeing a significant coffee certification project aimed at empowering over 4,000 farmers to achieve certified status by 2026.
Overview
4
4
years of professional experience
Work History
Sustainability Associate
Twende shamba Tanzania limited
Mbozi, Tanzania
01.2025 - Current
- Oversaw comprehensive coffee certification for Rainforest Alliance, implementing best practices in farm management such as fertilization, harvesting, processing, and packing to maintain sustainability compliance.
- Collecting and analyzing field data related with plant growth, soil condition, pest management, agro inputs, weather, harvesting and processing.
- Implementing Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) principles like soil water conservation technique (ie. Mulching), agroforestry, intercropping, irrigating through drip irrigation system and use drought tolerance seeds.
- Identify new stakeholders around the country and ensure formulation and signing of the strategic partnership agreement (M.O.Us).
- Organize and lead weekly meeting with various stakeholder’s, sharing and discussing the project progress (Challenges and solution’s).
- Planning and supervising day to day activities of Seed Multiplication farms.
- Organize weekly meetings, solve challenges and share the progress with top managers.
- Collaborate and ensure good relationship with various stakeholders (National and International) like Keza, API, RAB, ACR-Rwanda, Employ Africa-SA, Agri energy and BF-Italy.
- Ensure that, Occupation Health and Safety (OHS) measures for all staffs (Field and Processing Machines) are implemented and respected.
- Through capacity building trainings, introduced farmers into Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) Principles like use of drought and diseases tolerant seeds, Soil water conservation principles, Rural Advisory Services (RAS), Water use efficiency like in coffee processing, and Agroforestry.
- Explored, developed and signed 1 years’ partnership M.O.U with 2 farmer’s cooperatives in mbozi.
- Enabled the Cooperatives of Malolo and bahanko, to pass for first time the certificates of forest Alliance (RA) in 2025/2026 which boosted their coffee sales.
- Facilitated capacity building to over 3347 farmers, on coffee harvesting and processing, resulted increase in coffee quality from score of 78 to 85++, which increased price to 7$/Kg.
- Formed the farm rejuvenation program, which leads to planting about 385,000 new coffee seedlings.
- Furthermore, involved in developing various key certification documents like Internal Control systems (ICS/IMS), Operational manuals, traceability systems and policies.
- Engaged in preparation of consultant work contracts, sign contract and evaluate work performance.
- Working with Twende shamba Tanzania limited, Mbozi district, serving as sustainability associate, assisting in managing the RA CERTIFICATION (worth, $1.7 Million) dealing with the coffee certification funded by Touton SA-France.
- Link: malolo Cooperative: https://coopade.org/
- Bahanko Cooperative: https://www.kawakanzururu.com/
External Field Enumerator Officer
SOLIDARIDAD
Mbeya, Tanzania
10.2023 - 11.2024
- Agricultural Research & Adoption Analysis: Spearheaded qualitative research to evaluate farmer needs and behavioral responses to newly introduced compact coffee varieties; analyzed farmer feedback to optimize distribution strategies and long-term crop transition.
- Seedling Distribution & Agronomic Monitoring: Led the large-scale distribution of compact variety coffee seedlings to 1,000+ farmers across Mbeya Rural (Umalila, Usongwe, Chapakazi, Utengule) and Mbozi (Bahanko, Ipyana, Shikumbi, Bara, Isaiso).
- Data-Driven Field Enumeration: Managed comprehensive enumeration for 1,000+ smallholders, utilizing electronic data collection tools (ODK/Kobo) with a 99% accuracy rate to establish a robust baseline for the 2026 season.
- Rainforest Alliance (RA) Certification: Successfully implemented RA certification for two AMCOS (500+ farmers) and managed the high-standard export of 200 MT of certified coffee, ensuring 100% traceability to international markets.
- Strategic Network Expansion: Scaled the 2026 sustainability program by 800%, successfully recruiting and onboarding 20 cooperatives and 4,000+ total farmers into the training and certification pipeline.
- Technical Training & Capacity Building: Facilitated specialized workshops on compact variety management and RA standards; completed advanced RA Trainee coursework to enhance field-level technical support.
- Collaborative Team Leadership: Directed nightly strategy reviews with field teams to synchronize tasks and enforced rigorous quality control protocols to guarantee the integrity of all gathered data.
- Operational Efficiency: Partnered with senior supervisors to refine sampling methodologies and substitution protocols, improving field operational efficiency by 20%.
Field Officer
Kibena Tea Limited
Njombe, Tanzania
07.2022 - 10.2022
- Working closely with farmer groups and AMCOS in Njombe in managing processing activities as well as finances received from the company.
- Managing and processing loans for purchasing processing machines as well as advanced loans for purchasing loans.
- Advising farmer groups on the best ways to use their finances and how best to keep their records through different trainings.
- Organizing farmers to register and start a profitable business group.
- Monitoring and evaluating field activities.
- Supporting the company in sourcing and promoting the production of high quality and single origin tea from small holder farmers, co-operatives and estates.
- To train farmers on good agronomic practices that will improve the farm productivity.
- To train clients on general sustainability standards that will help to comply with all verification and certification standards such as UTZ, RFA, 4C and Café Practice.
- Support clients with Direct Export business.
- Overseeing the implementation and reporting of the tea Partnership in Tanzania (CPT) Modal farm project in Njombe.
Education
BSc. bachelor degree - AGRIBUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY
MBEYA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Mbeya, Tanzania07-2024
Advance certificate of secondary Education - CBG
KWIRO BOYS HIGH SCHOOL
Morogoro, Tanzania06-2021
Ordinary certificate of secondary education - Secondary Education
WANIKE SECONDARY SCHOOL
Njombe, Tanzania11-2018
Skills
- Crop production
- Sustainability standards
- Project Management
- Strategic Leadership
- Operations
- Team Management
- Risk Management
- Training manual development
- Quality training delivery
- Marketing
- Cooperative Management
- Post Harvesting Management
- Problem solving
- Team working
- Regenerative agriculture
- Driving license
Accomplishments
- Strategic Growth & Recruitment: Spearheaded the expansion of the sustainability program for the 2026 season by successfully recruiting 20 cooperatives and onboarding 4,000+ farmers, representing an 800% increase in program reach.
- Certification Excellence: Led the end-to-end implementation of Rainforest Alliance (RA) certification for two AMCOS, ensuring 100% compliance for over 500 smallholder farmers.
- Commercial Sourcing & Export: Directed the successful sourcing and international export of 200 MT of RA-certified coffee, managing logistics and traceability to meet global market standards.
- Collaborative Leadership & Teamwork: Orchestrated cross-functional collaboration between field officers, cooperative boards, and internal export teams to streamline documentation and audit readiness.
- Training & Capacity Building: Facilitated comprehensive RA sustainability training for farmers, translating complex certification standards into actionable field practices to ensure long-term compliance.
- Professional Development: Completed advanced Rainforest Alliance Trainee coursework, applying modern sustainability frameworks to improve farm-level operational efficiency.
Languages
English
Swahili
Expert Profile
I am an Agribusiness man, Agronomist, Project Manager as well as the Certification standards expert with remarkable record and experience of more than 4 years of working with farmers (Smallholder and estates) and Agribusiness companies of Beverage crops (coffee, and tea), Horticultural crops (fruits and Vegetables), implementing sustainability standards, establishing and assisting in managing Multinational agricultural projects (Donors: EU, Elan RDC, USAID, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Stichting Max Havelaar-Netherlands).
Timeline
Sustainability Associate
Twende shamba Tanzania limited
01.2025 - Current
External Field Enumerator Officer
SOLIDARIDAD
10.2023 - 11.2024
Field Officer
Kibena Tea Limited
07.2022 - 10.2022
BSc. bachelor degree - AGRIBUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY
MBEYA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Advance certificate of secondary Education - CBG
KWIRO BOYS HIGH SCHOOL
Ordinary certificate of secondary education - Secondary Education
WANIKE SECONDARY SCHOOL