Zanzibar: The United Republic of Tanzania is doing well in consolidating
the green revolution drive and the future of agriculture is very bright, no
wonder in 2013/15, the mainland had surplus maize for export and Zanzibar
had Cassava.
This was the verdict of The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
(AGRA) delegation that visited Zanzibar in February 24- 27, 2014. The
group, with delegates from across East and West Africa was led by Mr
Joseph De Vries, AGRA’s Program for Africa’s Seed Systems (PASS) Director
and commended the government of Tanzania for being in the frontline in
making green revolution real.
Dr Mary Mgonja, AGRA Country Head -Tanzania thanked the government for
lifting grain export bans and called for farmers to be facilitated and
enhanced so that the agriculture can be profitable.
“Our farmers need to be linked up with output markets both within and
outside the country,” she said calling for policy actions that would help
farmers market their products in producer marketing groups to maximize the
export benefits.
Mr George Bigirwa, AGRA’s Pass Programme Associate Director informed the
media that PASS’ main beneficiaries are small holder farmers, as they get
access to affordable seeds, which they are able to share. By the end of
last year (2013) PASS had invested USD13.5 million in Tanzania.
“About USD 0.9M went to training scientists, USD4.1M supporting research,
USD 2.9M supporting seed enterprises and USD 5.6M was for agro dealers
development,” he said.
The Associate Director noted that, in Tanzania, several crop varieties have
been released with the support of AGRA – mainly for maize, cassava, beans
and soya beans. “We are still looking forward to release a number of more
crop varieties,” he announced.
Mr Joseph De Vries said that, AGRA has invested strongly in development of
Tanzania based seed industry through assistance of both financial and
technical to start up seed enterprises. So far, AGRA has supported 13
different seed companies to produce seed of different crops for selling to
small scale farmers.
“Our mission is to promote as many as possible of African smallholder
farmers to benefit from use of improved adopted seed. We see that as the
best entry for farmers to increase their yields both for food security and
being able to market the surplus. In Tanzania, we have been funding a lot
of crop breeding in various parts of the country. A number of principal
food crop include maize, cassava, rice, beans and sweet potatoes,” he said.
PASS Director assured that AGRA was supporting development of new crop
varieties in Tanzania through research conducted by breeders in the
Ministry of Agriculture , and then for delivery of that seed it turn to
private sector in order to develop a number of Tanzanian seed companies who
then finally market the seed to local communities through agro dealers.
“In terms of developing improved crop varieties for farmers in Tanzania,
AGRA support local breeding which is supported by research stations within
Tanzania by Tanzanian scientists. We support local breeding systems as
opposed to getting varieties from international companies,” chipped in, Dr
Jane Ininda AGRA Program Officer, Crop Improvement and Farmer Variety
Adoption.
Mr Richard Jones- PASS Chief of Party, Scaling Seeds and Technologies
Partnerships in Africa said, “Tanzania is one of the countries that has
signed up to the G8’s new alliance on food security. That project started
in July last year, we’ve already had a national consultation in Tanzania
and we’ll be issuing our first course of proposal in the next month,” he
said.
For the sustainability of green revolution, Mr De Vries posited that it
lies in a combination of government policies to take up support of breeding
as a core activity of achieving food security.
During the field trip, cassava farmers were happy with the surplus
production, but lamented the market was not assured. Farmer Said Issa
Ismael said because a good number of farmers have adopted new varieties,
there was overwhelming production. “We are happy, but have to look for
markets beyond Zanzibar,” he said.
End