This way, Kilimo Kwanza is just another useless song
By Saumu Jumanne
Once again the country runs the risk of suffering acute food shortages. That
is why from April, the Government of Tanzania (GoT) halted food exports,
especially maize. According to the Minister for Agriculture, Prof Jumanne
Maghembe, the ban runs from April to June this year.
The good professor has very good reasons. After all the inflation has being
going up for six months, driven by high costs of fuel and food.
Business people from maize-hungry neighbouring countries have been lining up
at our borders ready to pay higher prices (than what GoT and local business
people can pay) for the precious commodity.
So if our farmers for the love of money export all their maize, the nation
will experience acute food shortage. How unpatriotic! Then the inflation
will skyrocket to never experienced levels, and God forbid, we could end up
having massive food protest movement with very negative implications for the
ruling class.
The GoT puts the figure of Tanzanians whose livelihood depends on
agriculture at 80 percent. This approximately is 34.4 million Tanzanians
taking into consideration 2002 census.
If only farming was a worthwhile activity, then our motherland should have
been one of the most progressive nations on earth.
Unfortunately, our average farmer is the wretched of the earth. A desperado
per excellent with hand to mouth life is a daily take and hardly with any
hope for a better life. For many Tanzanians peasantry farming is the
ultimate mark of failure.
Children as they grow up want to escape from the ‘disease’ of becoming a
farmer the soonest possible. Hardly any youngster wants to remain back in
rural areas to engage in the ‘disease.’ They all dream of living in Dar es
Salaam and other urban centres doing anything else but farming.
Those who are able to move from peasantry farming to farmer-business are the
only saving grace in the profession. They always complain whenever the GoT
bans food exports, it does not buy their harvest at the prices the export
market pays.
Call me unpatriotic for this but it is high time farmers are allowed to sell
their crops anywhere they want for prices that can make them rich. I feel
that banning maize exports, where farmers are able to get good money for
their sweat is counterproductive. Take an example of Mbeya Region. It is a
food basket that through irrigation farming, can feed the neighbouring
nations like Malawi, Zambia, etc.
In April at African Investment Forum at Mlimani City, President Jakaya
Kikwete lamented that the motherland has plenty of land but only one percent
is being utilized for agricultural production. If the situation is to
improve, farmers must be able to see money in the crops they grow.
A farmer in the village who wants to come and sell his produce in Dar es
Salaam must get a permit from the village government. Then along the way
there are so many stumbling blocks with different authorities that are
supposed to give permission for the produce to be taken to the market in Dar
or other urban centres. That is why mostly farmers have to rely on moneyed
middlemen who undercut them.
The last two years the government jointly with private sector has been
selling to the people the agriculture first drive (Kilimo Kwanza). As much
as it is a noble initiative without the farmer being able to improve his
life through farming due to roadblocks put on his way in selling his
produce.
Tanzania has very favourable condition for agriculture – adequate water and
rich farmland. Food shortage should never be an issue and total ban on food
export, even for a day, should never be. If Tanzania creates a thousand
farmer billionaires, food shortages will be a thing of the past.
*Saumu Jumanne is an Assistant Lecturer at Dar es Salaam University
College (DUCE).