Involve farmers in policy formulation

For decades, agriculture has been the economic mainstay of Tanzania. Despite the growth of other sectors in recent years, it accounts for 24.5 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, provides 85 per cent of exports and employs more than a half of the workforce.

It is understood that nearly 70 per cent of 45 million Tanzanians live in rural areas, depending on agriculture for their living.  Revolutionising agriculture, therefore, means increasing employment, expanding the economy and ensuring food security. However, the sector faces numerous challenges. It is hamstrung by poor technology, pests, low investment, vagaries of weather and market uncertainties. It is small wonder that the sector grew by 4.3 per cent in 2012, less than half of the Millennium Development Goal of 10.8 per cent. 

A number of declarations in the past decade to increase funding in the sector to 10 per cent of the country’s budget have done little to improve it. Although 16.4 per cent of land is arable, only 2.4 per cent of it is planted with permanent crops because the sector is underfunded. Smallholder farmers dominate the sector and cultivate average farm sizes of between 0.9 hectares and three hectares. They farm 5.1 million hectares annually, 85 per cent being food crops. Staples produced include maize, sorghum, millet, rice, wheat, pulses, cassava, potatoes and bananas with the bulk of the country’s export crops being coffee, cotton, cashew nuts, tobacco, sisal, pyrethrum, tea, cloves, horticultural crops, oil seeds and spices.

Food security

Because the sector relies heavily on rains, adequate irrigation methods are crucial to increase agricultural production, ensure food security and uplift the livelihoods of farmers. This requires drawing up appropriate programmes, providing ample extension services, having the right technology and increasing funding. Preparation for agricultural policies should be undertaken by involving all players in the sector.

That was why farmers on Friday called on the government to involve them in drafting agricultural policies and other programmes to develop the sector. Speaking during a dialogue hosted by the Tanzania Network for Smallholders and the Eastern and Southern Africa Small-scale Farmers’ Forum, small-scale farmers criticised the government for only involving large-scale farmers in policy formulation.

They urged the government to honour Malabo and Maputo declarations by increasing funds allocated to agriculture to 10 per cent of the national budget. According to the farmers, many agricultural sector development programmes have failed to bear fruit because small-scale farmers have been sidelined in initial stages of preparing them.

They cited the Agricultural Sector Development Programme through which the government has been supplying fertilisers to areas where they are not needed.  The ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives says there are too many farmers to involve all of them. We call on the government to involve as many stakeholders as possible in drawing up programmes and increase funding in the agricultural sector. This is what will revolutionise it. Source