Posted on December, 14, 2021 at 09:22 am
Agricultural land in Tanzania was officially measured last in 2016, when arable land amounted to 44 million hectares (ha) out of the country’s total land area of 86,610,000ha.
But, only about 33 percent of that land area was under cultivation. Generally, ‘agricultural land’ is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as “land devoted to agriculture and the systematic, controlled use of other forms of life – particularly livestock-rearing and crops production”.
FAO also defines arable land “as including land under temporary crops (double-cropped areas are counted once); temporary meadows for mowing or pasture; land under market or kitchen gardens, and land that is temporarily fallow – excluding land abandoned in shifting cultivation”.
However – and, as already noted herein above – only about a third of Tanzania’s arable land is usually in use, with the rest virtually idle in terms of economic production.
Analysts are of the considered view that this lackadaisical approach to increased use of agricultural land in Tanzania is partly to be blamed on our youth who shun agriculture along its entire value chain – be that in sustenance farming or commercially-principled agribusiness.
While some 80 million households in Tanzania – equivalent to 65.3 percent of the total number of households across the land – were engaged in agriculture in 2019/2020, only a very few of the youth in those households were directly and/or principally involved in agricultural activities.
Most surprisingly, this is despite the fact that agriculture has a huge potential for all-inclusive and meaningful socioeconomic development on a sustainable basis.
Leading contributor
Indeed, agriculture is a leading contributor to the country’s gross domestic product. It accounted for 28.2 percent of the GDP in 2018 ($12.7 billion), rising from 25.8 percent ($10.3 billion) in 2014. This was a relatively phenomenal increase of 48 percent in five years.
Just imagine what the increase in GDP could, would, be if a goodly number of the country’s youth were directly involved in agricultural activities. At least 800,000 Tanzanian youth enter the jobs market annually, with very minimal access to formal/salaried employment.
While we anxiously await the 2022 National Population and Housing Census to detail us on the subject-matter, we can only note here today that the 2012/2013 Labour Force Survey by the Iringa-based Restless Development-Tanzania found that “unemployment among youth aged 15-24 was 13.7 percent – and 9.8 percent for those aged 25-35 years.”
This is most consternating, indeed – especially as the situation worsens with the passage of time, while the huge potentials in agriculture continue to remain under-exploited.
Indeed, several schemes have been put in place to help our youth advance via the agricultural value chain avenue. These include the Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) Access to Finance Programme; the East Africa Youth Inclusion Programme (EAYIP), and the FAO-assisted Youth Agriculture & Marketing Project.
Yet, agriculture as an occupation remains an anathema to our youth. Why?
This is an issue that requires revisiting and rethinking to iron out any and all kinks – thus bringing Agriculture and the Youth together in the best interests of the country and its people
Source: The Citizen