Posted on April, 27, 2021 at 09:47 am
THE importance of agriculture in Tanzania's economic growth and its gradual elevation from one stage to another until it becomes a truly self-reliant industrial developed nation is glaring. Although the importance of agriculture is known, the mystery has been to unlock this sector's potential so that it offers Tanzanians jobs, food and prosperity.
One way of unlocking that potential is to use effectively block farming. In a developed industrial Tanzania, agriculture will still be an important sector because it will be a source of food, raw materials and strategic exports. But at that stage agriculture will probably be an occupation of a small percentage of Tanzanians.
Most Tanzanians will depend on wages as they will be working in offices, service sector, and construction industry and in industries. To be able to reach at that stage it is important to start laying ground for a future strong service sector and construction industry by setting up manageable agro-industries and agribusinesses within and around villages.
It is important to start creating small agri-businesses and agro-industries today to create jobs and opportunities for school and college leavers so that they can gain technical skills and experience is running businesses. Tanzania is largely dominated by peasant farming and one of the ways of improving peasant agriculture is to reintroduce block farming based on prevailing conditions in the country and in the world. History shows that in 1967, six years after Tanganyika became independent, the Arusha Declaration was enunciated.
The declaration said: "Let us be concerned with the peasant and reform agriculture". It called for introducing Block Farming using Ujamaa villages; but with little or no success. As a result agriculture today remains shrouded in mystery that denies it competitiveness. Block farming has to be properly implemented lest it turns into a curse.
And there are good reasons for making this assertion. If poor peasants abandon their own plots and choose to become labourers in emerging farms surrounding them that will be very retrogressive and highly damaging. The second reason is that well-supervised block farming would help Tanzania put to good use undeveloped arable land.
The third reason is to call on Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) and district officials to ensure block farming this time succeeds and influences peasants to change their mindset. Block farming can be reintroduced in existing villages where leaders are keen to uplift the lives of villagers.
We must remember that in the era of Ujamaa villages, every peasant owned up to three hectares of land for private development. Not land in Ujamaa villages was collectivized. In Mbozi District, for example, where block farming was implemented, yields per hectare reportedly increased three fold, farming was mechanised and peasants saw for themselves that they were on the way to prosperity. So history offers lessons to learn from.
This brings to mind Sokoine University of Agriculture's (SUA) block farming initiative that was launched last month by Agriculture Minister Adolf Mkenda. The minister praised the University's initiative as timely, saying it is part of the national strategy to modernise agriculture and ensure crops produced by farmers are relevant to the market. The inauguration function was also attended by former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Peniel Lyimo who praised the efforts currently being pioneered by the ministry and SUA, saying commercial farming should be embraced.
"Transforming agriculture sector means a lot as the government resolves to turn the country's economy into industrial based economy," Mr Lyimo who is also an alumni of SUA. He said agriculture sector is different from other sectors of economy since it needs more funding. The sector according to the former permanent secretary has many risks.
"Agriculture is a long undertaking for proper transformation," he said, calling for the government to invest heavily on infrastructure and set its priorities for the sector's growth and development. He also appreciated the establishment of Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB), saying that bank needs to have enough capital to meet financial challenges facing the sector.
In this initiative, SUA is pushing for establishment of block farms and agro-industrial clusters in districts using an entrepreneurial approach called Kizimba Business Model (KBM). The approach, too, has historical explanation that would help understand why KBM approach emerged last year.
For years, it has long been felt that SUA, as a tertiary institution of agriculture, should have a way of nurturing talents and skill of its graduates for the benefit of the graduates themselves and the nation. It was argued that use of graduates would increase agricultural productivity and raise the sector's competitiveness. More importantly, agriculture has to be a source of jobs, especially for youths.
In 2011 the University formed a service cooperative known as Sokoine University Graduate Entrepreneurs Cooperative (SUGECO) to address the anomaly and encourage Tanzania's youth to get into agriculture and form agri-businesses. This, in a way, is what an Ujamaa Village sought to achieve.
In a SUGECO brochure, the University says that the cooperative "works to foster skills development and agri-enterprising for enhanced youth employability through diverse strategies and services." The University also wants to use the cooperative to emphasise on "mindset transformation, skills development, incubation, business development service and policy dilogue. Success recorded by SUGECO has several times been used by the government in matters relating to creating employment for the youth in the agriculture sector.
Further, Nzega, Kibiti na Liwale districts have responded to SUA's awakening call and have offered arable land to SUGECO for development. If everything goes well young people will learn to employ themselves and fellow youths in those districts. Last year, a consultative meeting was held in March in the Coast Region and SUGECO presented KBM approach initiative.
It called on districts to set aside tracts of unused fertile land for agricultural transformation. This is how KBM emerged. A tract offered by the district would be sliced into blocks. A block would have "all necessary infrastructure and facilities. A block would further be divided into small units called "Vizimba"(smaller plots). Then those units would be leased or transferred to individual farmers to improve farmers' wellbeing and contribute to district and national agricultural performance.
The University has published a guide for establishing, operating and managing block farms and agro-industrial clusters using KBM approach. The benefits associated with this approach include market assurance, inclusive resource mobilisation for agriculture development, better lending environment for both commercial and development banks, skills and employment creation and revenue for local government authorities.
The University explains that the KBM approach originates in the local government authorities (LGA) business environment improvement initiative. The University says "KBM is a technical product in form of approach and design to support agricultural sector development. It is meant to facilitate public private partnership (PPP) for inclusive resource mobilisation and youth engagement in agriculture for skills and employability." According to SUA, KBM starts by identifying off-take/s to guarantee the market for the produced product within the blocks.
Other operations include pooled access to inputs, extension services, storage, transportation and marketing. Thus, the challenges of farm production infrastructure, uniform quality of the produce, reliable supply, producer power of price negotiation, and banks' lending environment in agriculture will all be solved through this model and hence overall competitiveness of the sector will be improved. In the Mbozi Ujamaa village, in those days, these issues were taken care of as a service centre for tractors and trucks maintenance was established right in the village.
However when the leadership changed the young village lost got into serious problems and died a natural death. A lesson to learn from! SUA also says, its KBM approach aims to address the needs of the youth as well as to support the current agenda of the sixth government on industrialisation and implementation of the National Strategy for Youth Involvement in Agriculture." Tanzania wants to become an industrial nation in 2025, four years from now.
But to achieve the declared ambition, serious efforts have to be pumped in the agriculture sector to ensure hardworking small farmers scattered all over Tanzania do not remain poorly organised. Hence, the importance of encouraging all districts to set aside tracts of arable land for block farming and embrace SUA's KBM experience
Source: Daily News