Felix Kaiza
While touring his home region, Tanzania’s Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda went
through two experiences worth putting on record. He received a
three-hundred-shilling boost from a teenage boy to help him secure
nomination papers for a parliamentary seat in the forthcoming general
elections. That is politics. That is their game.
Then he found himself saying Tanzania has reached a stage of saying “enough
is enough” to the hand hoe. This is more than politics. The implications of
these words are more than what the current Tanzania socio-economic and
political muscle can hold. But, if agriculture is to occupy its right seat
in the running of the country’s economic growth, what the Prime Minister had
to say is exactly what should happen. I think he could not have put the
condition better. For, as long as Tanzanians continue banking on the hand
hoe, the orchestrated “Kilimo Kwanza” would indeed end up as one of those
incorrigible political ‘hit rhythms’ in which the actors and actresses end
up being spectators themselves. God forbid!
For a change,Tanzania this time at least must take agriculture seriously.
The industry is not a stage for self-entertainment. Nor is it an area where
those in political posts should hoodwink smallholders years on end. It is an
area of serious concern for national development.
Looking back through the history tunnel, there is every evidence that our
agriculture can develop. During the colonial times, Tanganyika (Mainland
Tanzania today) was the granary of East Africa. If history ever repeats
itself, why not with agriculture?
What exists in the files of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of
the United Nations slaps Tanzania and its people in the face. Given the
right push, the Ruvu Basin can feed the other East African countries.
Kilombero can comfortably feed the whole of Central Africa. While Kyela can
cover West Africa, Rufiji would suffice for North Africa including the
Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. Wami and Arusha Chini are enough for the entire
South African zone. And this is only in respect of rice. At the same time,
Tanzania would still be left with enough stock for its strategic grain
reserve.
But all this can take place only if we committedly say “bye” to the
hand-hoe and rain-dependent farming. We have to put in place animal-drawn
farming systems. We have the animals (cattle and donkeys). No need for
imports. We have adequate ‘fuel’ (grass). The tools can be manufactured
locally.
Then we can go into meaningful irrigation. Irrigation and the hand-hoe do
not match. However, available information on the ground is that Tanzania
boasts a total of one million hectares of land that can be put under
irrigation. At the same time, the country should actually take it with a
pinch of salt that less than one per cent of this highly potential arable
land is currently being irrigated. This happens alongside the National
Irrigation Development Plan.
Tanzania’s agriculture itself, like the walls of Biblical Jerusalem, has a
tale to shed tears on. The respective policy is magnificent. But the horde
of “development programmes” just does not deliver. As a result, the
country’s failure to hit the 2010 target of halving absolute poverty as
stated in the just-ended Phase One National Strategy for Growth and Poverty
Reduction (MKUKUTA I) can greatly be blamed on failed agro-development
programmes.
Why? The agriculture that Tanzania undertakes is for food and cash. Since
the mid 1980s, the average annual growth for food crops has been 3.5.% as
against 5.4% of cash crops. For “MKUKUTA One” to make it, the sector had to
grow at a rate of between six and seven per cent annually. This did not
materialize. Since agriculture is the mainstay of the national economy,
where else could have miracles come from?
Despite external factors that had negative impact on the performance of the
agriculture industry, there are factors that are within our control.
Tanzania has farming systems that suit every ecological area. In fact, on a
light note in terms of numbers, the country has a farming system for every
one of the ‘God’s Ten Commandments’.
The systems are:
. Banana/Coffee/Horticulture system practiced in Kagera,
Kilimanjaro, Arusha, Kigoma and Mbeya.
. Maize/Legume system operating in Rukwa, Ruvuma, Arusha,
Kagera, Shinyanga, Iringa, Mbeya, Kigoma, Tabora, Tanga, Mara, Kahama and
Biharamulo.
. Cashew/Coconut/Cassava system along the coast and eastern
Lindi and Mtwara.
. Rice and sugarcane.
. Sorghum/bulrush millet and livestock.
. Tea/Maize/Pyrethrum.
. Cotton/ Maize .
. Horticulture-based.
. Wet-rice and irrigation system operating in the river valleys
and alluvial plains of the Kilombero, Wami, Kilosa, Lower Kilombero, Ulanga,
Kyela, Usangu and Rufiji.
. Pastoralist and agro-pastoralist.
A closer look at the systems should make one wonder why Tanzania still fails
to make it in the midst of all these agro-economic variations enjoying
ecological advantages of almost every climatic condition on our planet. This
could emanate from the failure to get a delivering mix of smallholder and
big scale farming.
Within the echoes of the PM’s plea to abandon the hand-hoe era, it was
announced that Saudi Arabia was coming to invest in Tanzania’s agriculture.
Very fine. The people of ‘the desert’, so to say, are coming to teach
people of the wetlands how to make use of their resources!
This should be a big lesson to Tanzania. Nevertheless, we should take
advantage of this. Let us allocate these investors new areas of development,
where they will not have to displace the local people. Tanzania has no land
scarcity. In so doing, we shall have cleared the way for infrastructure
development. The coming investors have advanced road construction
capability, so we should incorporate their projects in our development
targets. Let us use them to transform, rather than distort the rural
setting. These investors can share their best agricultural practices with
our people. In this way, our people can easily part with the hand-hoe.
Our grassroots leaders must be trained in what goes into modernizing
agriculture in order to advise top leaders well. For example, if by chance
the local leaders do not know the usefulness of crop rotation, they are more
likely to mistake fallow land for hoarding and send a wrong reports to
national leaders that the investors are hoarding land when the farmers are
short of it.
This will be a recipe for trouble. The political leaders will react
negatively against investors. The investors will be discouraged and maybe
pull out. And back to square one we would go to our ancestors’ ‘most
reliable tool’-the hand-hoe.
Business Times