By Anthony Muchoki:
The magic that could propel farmers to better lives across Africa
seems to be improved seeds and access to assured markets for their
produce, and there lies the rock and hard place.
Visiting rural farmers in Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana and Malawi the
picture is the same- access to improved seed varieties, which holds
one of the keys to adequate yields is an uphill task, and never
guaranteed. This is despite farming being the most important economic
activity for the majority populace in the continent.
Each country has a blueprint at the topmost level for moving small
scale farmers up the ladder from the much disdained peasantry
agriculture to “farmer – business,” which would greatly reduce income
poverty.
For the governments, this is the only way out to create millions of
jobs and ensure spread out economic growth, which has trickledown
effect on the majority populace.
Development partners and members of the civil society know this, and
hence increased activities from them on issues to do with
agri-development. But when you talk to farmers on the ground, you
realise how talk is cheap as vastly in their struggle for survival is
mainly on their own.
Breadbaskets, big dreams and nothing to show for it
In Tanzania, President Jakaya Kikwete has on many times promoted
Morogoro, Ruvuma, Iringa and Mbeya as the breadbasket priority areas.
He supports Agriculture First initiative – a public and private sector
partnership to promote the sector and publicly. He has been very vocal
about it time and again.
At least farmers are grateful for the little efforts being made on
ground but clearly it is not enough, as they continue to languish in
poverty . “The government initiative for farmers to do away with hand
hoe in the Agriculture First initiative is good but not necessarily
the best. We can continue using the hand hoe… but what we need most
is good seeds at prices we can afford and good prices for our
produce,” says Mr Abdala Siali, of Ngerengere village in Morogoro
Region.
The Regional Agricultural Advisor, Mrs Aulalia Minja laments that the
cost of farming has become very high and for small farmers many times
the resultant income from the efforts is nothing to talk home about.
Talking about improved seeds, she says:
“Use of quality seeds counts about 10 per cent countrywide and is very
low compared to some other African countries,” she laments. Still
Tanzania has made great strides in agri-production, and at the moment
as other East African nations suffer hunger, Tanzania is exporting
grains to them.
Saumu Jumanne a lecturer at Dar es Salaam University College of
Education says, even with the bumper harvests, many farmers will not
benefit from the export of grains as middle men are the main
beneficiaries.
“With more concerted efforts in ensuring farmers at grassroot levels
have access to quality seeds and afterwards assured market that is not
exploitive, the economic prospects for the majority populace would
change,” she says.
Many strides made— but not enough
In Uyole, Mbeya, Mama Bahati, who was interviewed about her farming
activities in April by Kofi Annan, Former UN secretary general and now
the board chair of Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA),
appreciates the strides made in turning small holder farmers into
businesspeople.
With her small farm in an irrigation scheme in Uyole, she says, life
is much better, thanks to projects by AGRA and other stakeholders that
are making it possible to get quality seeds and other inputs.
Still she says the prospects of being conned or exploited by middlemen
and dealers looms large. “You have to be sure where you are getting
the seeds. Fake seeds or sub standard pesticides can destroy a whole
season’s handwork,” she says.
Arnord Mushongi, a seed breeder in Mbeya at a project funded by AGRA,
says meeting the demand for improved seeds is difficult and will take
time. Agro-dealers, also agree the demand is high, and worse there are
still many smallholder farmers who cannot afford the price. “Because
of the high prices, dishonest dealers and middle men offer fake seeds
at lower prices to unsuspecting farmers,” says a seed dealer in Mbeya
who refused to be named.
Such are just samples of the complex problems that smallholder farmers
face making it impossible for Tanzania to become the bread basket of
Africa. AGRA board chair, after visiting a number of agri-projects in
April, he said, the country had the potential of becoming Africa’s
bread basket. No one seems to have the formula for translating the
said potential into reality. Even where smallholder farmers are the
beneficiary, like in the case of AGRA projects in Tanzania and other
countries, not all of them are happy.
Is agro-ecological agriculture the answer to farmers’ woes?
Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers’ Forum (ESAFF), a body
which operate in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi,
Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, South Africa, Madagascar and Seychelles,
says some farmers are worried that AGRA initiatives support intensive
use of agro chemicals.
According to ESAFF, the AGRA package, to some farmers is a short term
solution and needs to advocate for ecological friendly agriculture as
a solution to African farming problems. Despite ESAFF representing
many grassroots farmer organisations across Eastern and Southern
Africa, there has been no round table meeting with AGRA to reach a
consensus on how to help small scale farmers, which could help greatly
in advocacy for turning peasants into farmer- businesspeople. In an
interview in Ghana, Ms Sylvia Mwichuli, AGRA’s Communications and
Public Affairs Director says, her organisation addresses challenges
all along the agricultural value chain- covering seeds, soil health,
water, markets, and agri-education.
While commending efforts to support agriculture through the AU/NEPAD-
Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and
other initiatives like AGRA, Moses Shaha, ESAFF Chairperson says,
agro-ecological agriculture is the answer to future food security, a
position his organisation wants to sell to other bodies concerned with
the plight of the smallholder farmers. But do the grassroots farmers
even know what is good for them? Mostly they readily welcome any help
to improve yields and get market access.
AGRA wants farming to become real business for smallholder farmers
Ms Mwichuli says, in Africa smallholder farmers are the foundation of
development and farming has to be seen and become real business. She
believes it is possible to find uniquely African problems for what
ails the peasant farmers, with smart partnerships. But for Mr Osofo
Apulla, a farmer in rural Tamale, in Northern Ghana, as long as he can
remember smallholder farmers’ terrestrial woes have ever been hardly
solved.
“Strides are made, then later on, a step or two backwards and the
vicious circle of poverty comes home to roost,” he says, but quickly
points out that efforts being made at the moment by bodies like AGRA
may bear fruits. He says it will take many years for small scale
farmers to be the kings and queens in Africa.
In Kenya, at a village called Kaimiri in Murang’a, a small-holder
farmer, Mrs Cecilia Njuguna, who is over 70 years old, recalls with
nostalgia the late 1970s and early 80s, and says those were the years
farming was a business for her. In the last ten years she has reduced
her coffee plantation to over a thousand trees, to just a few trees
here and there for remembrance.
In her shamba, she plants food crops for consumption and for sale. She
says there are times she has bought fake seeds unknowingly and the
yield has been a disaster. She is sceptical that agriculture can be an
economic saviour for Kenya. “All the young people in the villages will
only take farming as the last option. Many will go to the cities to
become slaves rather than become farmers,” she says looking up in the
blue azure skies, and the down to her green maize plantation that
stands out copared to her neigbours’ plantations. Many farmers have no
other choice for making a living, she adds.
Mrs Cecilia’s concerns and others are valid to some extent, and that
is why to make green revolution real, involving farmers is one of the
key for success. In Malawi, Ibrahim Benesi, a cassava breeder who has
been featured in AGRA’s “Faces of Green Revolution,” says, the farmer
must be at the forefront in any research for improving agriculture.
For him, working closely with farmers in breeding new varieties is a
key to success.
Small holder farmers key to progress
The Northern regional director, Ministry of Agriculture in Ghana, Mr.
J. Y. Faalong also supports the idea that smallholder farmers are the
key for progress to be made in turning them into businesspeople.
He says, in all the programme they have for supporting farmers to
increase productivity and production, the farmer is always at the
centre stage. Farmers may not necessarily feel it that way, but he is
confident, things are working, albeit slowly. He says, in 2010, over
15,000 smallholder farmers who were beneficiary of a number of
agri-projects, were able to increase yields and become farmer
businesspeople.
As Africa turns to the application of science and technology, small
scale farmers in every country you go are not being left behind. Even
if the continent makes slow progress in turning smallholder farmers to
businesspeople, the words of AGRA’s president Dr. Namanga Ngongi, that
agriculture is the most important sector as a driver of growth,
poverty reduction and food security, rings true but when will this be?
Can it be…..?
*To contact the writer email Anthony.muchoki@gmail.com,