TANZANIA’S focus today is on the agrarian situation and the subsequent trajectory of change to bring small-scale farmers into the mainstream development process of the country.
The country’s story is now being re-written afresh as an undulating progression towards a different society from what prevailed at the dawn of independence when the founding fathers vowed to eradicate impediments to development in the form of ignorance, poverty and diseases.
Today concerted efforts are being placed on improving livelihoods, enhancing food and nutrition security, increasing employment and preserving natural resource integrity.
This was perhaps more evident at the annual 47th Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair (DITF) when visitors flocked at the pavilion of the Tanzania Fertiliser Regulatory Authority (TFRA).
The key message that greeted the visitors was about rescuing the Tanzanian subsistence farmers from the challenges hampering agricultural transformation as the nation craves for achieving Agenda 1030 on ending hunger, achieving food security and promoting sustainable agriculture by 2030.
TFRA Executive Director, Dr Stephan Ngailo spoke at length on government strategies of changing the nature of the country’s rural economy involving the pursuit of an agricultural livelihood encompassing subsistence and commodity products to benefit the 85 per cent farming community.
“We’re here at this pavilion to educate our stakeholders – large-scale and smallholder farmers — to adopt modern farming methods through the use of fertilisers to enable them increase production.
Knowledge about fertiliser application is a crosscutting issue for people of all walks of life as the ultimate goal is food self-sufficiency,” Dr Ngailo said.
“We are here to address farm productivity from the majority Tanzanian smallscale farmers which has been low due to inappropriate technologies; what we’re trying to propagate is that the inapt technologies have contributed to poverty, malnutrition, unemployment, food insecurity and inefficient use of scarce resources.” Government’s push for agricultural reform emanates from the fact that the technology being used to cultivate food and cash crops calls for a complex of inputs to achieve large yield increases as agriculture’s capital needs rise with the need for fertiliser; pesticides, irrigation facilities; energy; marketing, storage and transportation infrastructure. In some regions of Tanzania, widespread use of fertilisers has in recent years made more food accessible and available in every corner of the country more than ever before.
Yet the country’s food security remains a top agenda, and with the increasing population projected to reach 77.5 million by 2030, encouragement of innovation in agriculture and education about farming techniques are crucial for the future of nutrition, says Dr Ngailo.
This year’s Dar es Salaam trade fair event was a momentous occasion where TFRA showcased the country’s capacity as the best destination for business and investment. Tanzania has a thriving, young, innovative and rapidly growing population which provides great opportunities for the country to promote the breadth and quality of trade and investment opportunities.
“Our goal as a government institution is to attract investors in the fertiliser industry in a move to build the foundations for solid trade relationships to make the most of new and exciting trade and investment opportunities locally and regionally,” Dr Ngailo said.
TFRA, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year since its inception, was among many state bodies which participated at this year’s Dar es Salaam fair carrying the theme: “Tanzania is the Right Place for Business and Investment.” The authority has been entrusted with the role of promoting investment in fertilizer domestic manufacturing to ensure farmers’ timely access of the commodity at affordable prices and minimise dependence on imports. The entity also controls the quality and trade of fertiliser and fertiliser supplements (FFS) in the entire value chain, including storage, imports, distribution and export.
Tanzania boasts of two fertiliser manufacturing factories, three factories for fertiliser supplements and sixteen small-scale manufacturers producing liquid fertilisers known as foliar fertilisers.
With a total arable land of 44,000,000 hectares out of which 14,520,000 are cultivated, Tanzania is basically an agrarian country whereby majority of its population’s livelihood and economic wellbeing depends on agriculture.
Current investment opportunities in the fertiliser value chain include manufacturing and packaging, international trade, clearing and forwarding, domestic distribution, market linkages, storage, financing, quality assurance and publicity.
Last year, the escalating fertiliser prices in the international market compelled the government to set aside 150bn/- as subsidy to help its millions of smallholders meet their basic food and nutrition requirements and farmer income.
The novel plan also took into account that stagnant smallholder production and vulnerability to natural disasters and the effects of climate change were barriers to growth and that there was need to enhance national systems and adopt an integrated approach to food security.
Tanzania is one of the sub Saharan Africa’s largest producers of maize, but production by smallholder farmers is stagnant because of lack of access to inputs and minimal value addition and post-harvest losses that reach 40 per cent.
Country surveys carried out by the World Food Programme have established that there is little collaboration among farmers’ organisations, input suppliers, traders and processors, and so smallholders have limited access to post-harvest technologies, financing, insurance, information, extension services and inputs.
These factors, according to Dr Ngailo, prompted the government to introduce the fertilizer subsidy scheme in the 2022/2023 farming seson to transform the agriculture sector. The main aim of the programme is to provide food for the people and raw materials for industry.
The programme is a brainchild of President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s government to uplift the economic status of millions of farmers in the country, who for decades have been struggling to improve their welfare in a hostile farming environment.
The national priority of this “lift-the-farmer” strategy, according to Dr Ngailo, is to broaden access to agricultural land for commercial production and subsistence farming.
“Agriculture’s contribution to the national income is set to rise substantially in the coming years as smallholders have responded enthusiastically to double production because of the fertilizer subsidy incentive,” notes the TFRA boss.
The writer can be reached through email: alphanuhu1952@gmail.com or mobile +255785045950
