The government has been challenged to be careful when implementing project plans and evaluate experiments besides learning from different failures, in an effort to improve cashewnut farming.
Speaking recently when presenting her research findings titled “The Diverging South: Comparing the Cashewnut Sectors of Tanzania and Vietnam,” Dr Blandina Kilama, a researcher with Research on Poverty Alleviation (Repoa) said the erratic trends of cashew nuts production in Tanzania were caused by numerous reversals of policies.
She argued that farmers were being treated as a residual (without flexibility) and processors as a way of utilizing excessive produce.
Unlike Tanzania, the steady rise of cashew production in Vietnam was due to the adoption of strategic and conducive policies that allow flexibility of farmers and processors who are taken as central to the cashew sector.
Kilama said that Tanzania needs to provide economic freedom to enable farmers cope with the prevailing situation and continue to invest in cashew despite unfavourable environment as it has remained to be their primary source of revenue.
She said efforts should be directed towards the smooth co-existence of all actors with the producers (farmers and processors) at the centre of decision making.
Comparing Vietnam and Tanzania, Dr Kilama said that the two countries have almost similar economic and political backgrounds with the high percentage of their populations living in rural areas, but today differ in cashew production.
Findings show that in 1960s both countries were leading in cashew production but to date there is a big variation. For example whereas today Tanzania produces 20,000 tonnes of cashew only, its Asian counterpart produces 350,000 tonnes per year.
Dr Kilama said that the survey showed that credit in Vietnam is provided through government initiated poverty alleviation programmes and by private banks, whereas Tanzania lacks a clear provider of credit and the farmers mainly depend on their earnings from cashew nut as their sole source of money.
On his part, a cashew farmer from Tandahimba Tarimo Chipola said that the fall in cashew production in the country was caused by the delay in input supply and lack of education among farmers on the cultivation of the crop.
He blamed the Cashewnut Board of Tanzania for changing the pesticides provided to famers as subsidies saying sometime they affect the yields when they fail to function properly.
CBT Director General Mafaume Juma urged farmers not to worry about the names of pesticides they use saying what matters is the content.
He said that farmers under a subsidy system should not compare themselves with those who can buy the pesticides using cash from their pockets.