AS Tanzania celebrates 61 years of independence, the government has said the country is stable in food security and determined to transform the agriculture sector, which has remained a key driver of economic growth.
Much as the country has recorded commendable achievements during 61 years of independence, the government has come out full throttle to transform the agriculture sector with allocation of budget going up four fold, much of the amount going to finance new irrigation projects.
Budget allocation for the agriculture sector has increased to a whopping 954bn/- for the financial year 2022/2023 up from 294bn/- which was allocated during the previous fiscal year.
Over the years, the irrigation schemes in some parts of the country have created the necessary resilience to rainfall variability, mitigation against drought and climate change and enhanced food security through all year crop production.
Yet, the country had not explored irrigation to its full potential but this is set to change, following the government’s commitment to invest heavily in the irrigation sector.
The objective is to increase agricultural productivity, which has always been a prominent feature on the country’s agenda to avert incidence of food and nutrition insecurity and increase the capacity to export the surplus.
Irrigation farming received a massive boost in August this year, following the signing of 21 contracts worth 182bn/- during the climax of Farmer’s Day (Nane nane) which was marked at national level at John Makangale Grounds in Mbeya Region.
The event was witnessed by President Samia Suluhu Hassan who was the chief guest at the colourful ceremony. The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Hussein Bashe, said the projects will cover 12 districts in seven regions and are expected to create 121,059 jobs.
“Implementation of the irrigation schemes are expected to increase production of rice to 97,300 tonnes of rice,” he explained. Adding; “The projects will include construction of three dams with a capacity of storing nine million cubic metres each.” According to Mr Bashe, budget allocation for irrigation has been increased from 57bn/- in the financial year 2021/2022 to 416bn/- in the current fiscal year.
Out of the 416bn/- allocated for irrigation, a total of 361bn/- will be raised from internal sources of revenues, he explained.
“The 182bn/- earmarked for the 21 contracts represent 51 per cent of funds allocated in the budget for irrigation during the current financial year,” Mr Bashe stated.
Minister Bashe said in National Assembly May this year that the ministry had completed feasibility study and design of details of several schemes which are Mkombozi (Iringa), Idudumo (Nzega), Luiche (Kigoma/Ujiji) and Ilemba (Sumbawanga) for 100 per cent.
Tabling budget proposal of the ministry for 2022/23 financial year he said feasibility study and detailed design of the Ibanda dam (Sengerema/Geita), Tlawi (Mbulu) and Makwale (Kyela) scheme had reached 65, 80 and 80 per cent, respectively through agricultural Sector Development Programme (ASDP) II.
In addition, through the REGROW project, feasibility study and detailed architecture in eight (8) schemes of Mbuyuni Kimani, Uturo, Isenyela, Makangarawe, Hermani, Chosi, Gonakuvagogolo and Matebete had reached 90 per cent, he said noting that the schemes be built in the fiscal year 2022/2023.
The minister explained further that implementation of the irrigation schemes will cover a total of 26,700 hectares. He added that plans also involved expanding the irrigation area to 8.5 million hectares equivalent to 50 per cent of the total area cultivated in the country by 2030.
The government’s aim is to achieve more than 10 per cent growth for the agriculture sector by 2030, Mr Bashe said. Other goals are ensuring food security and supply to cater for domestic demand and export, increasing the value of export of agricultural produce from 1.2 billion US dollars to more than 5 billion US dollars by 2030.
The government intends to increase sales of horticulture produce from 750 million US dollars per annum to 2 billion US dollars per annum by 2030 and this will largely rely on stable and reliable irrigation infrastructures. In fact, farmers in Tanzania are now breathing a sigh of relief after President Samia Suluhu Hassan launched a fertiliser subsidy scheme recently to lower its prices at the farmgate level.
Under the scheme, price for DAP fertiliser has gone down to 70,000/- from the market price of 136,135/- and the Urea from 124,714/- to 70, 000/- Price of CAN dropped to 60,000/- from 108,156/-, SA 50,000/- from 87,872/- and the NPK is available to farmers at a cost of 70,000/- against the market price of 122,695/-.
The launch of the subsidy scheme came at the most opportune time as fertiliser prices are at record high due to supply shortages fueled by the Ukraine-Russia conflict, along with a host of pre-existing factors.
The amount of fertiliser available globally has almost halved, while the cost of some types of fertiliser have nearly tripled over the past 12 months, according to the United Nations.
That is having a knock-on effect in many countries in Africa, where farmers are dependent on imported fertiliser.
Analysts see Africa – which already uses the least amount of fertiliser per hectare in the world – is at high risk. Tanzania whose consumption of fertiliser is below Africa’s average will be in dire situation.
According to the World Bank statistics, fertiliser consumption in Tanzania increased through the 1969 – 2018 period ending at 15.9 kilograms per hectare in 2018 below average consumption in Africa of 17 kilogrammes per hectare and well below global level of 135 kilogrammes per hectare.
Agriculture Sector Development Programme II puts fertiliser consumption level in Tanzania lower than the World Bank statistics. It says Tanzanian farmers use about 8–10 kg of fertiliser per hectare (from 2008 to 2013), compared with an average of 16 kg/ha for Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries while Malawi uses 27 kg/ha and China 279 kg/ha on average.
A study by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) shows that the usage of fertiliser in Tanzania is about 13.68 Kg/ha much lower than the target set by the African Union in the Abuja declaration of at least 50 kg/ha (FAOSTAT, 2018).
The FAO study points out reasons for low usage as limited awareness of the benefits of fertiliser amongst many farming communities in the country and price which is beyond what farmers can afford.
Analysts point out that the rising oil prices have pushed higher costs for agricultural inputs such as fuel and fertilisers. Some 80 percent of Tanzanians depend on agriculture for their livelihood.
The sector contributes to about 27 per cent of the country’s GDP and about 24 per cent to the total exports. Consequently, the National Development Vision 2025, the main national development strategy in Tanzania, places considerable emphasis on the sector and envisages that by 2025 the economy will have been transformed from a low productivity agricultural economy to a semi-industrialised one led by modernised and highly productive agricultural activities that are integrated with industrial and service activities in urban and rural areas.
According to the Third Five-Year Development Plan (FYDP-III) the country intends to employ effective application of science, technology and innovation to improve productivity and yields in the Agriculture Sector.
Given the structure of Tanzanian economy, it is undoubtedly that the growth of the sector is directly proportional to socioeconomic development, prosperity and poverty reduction.
However, the agricultural growth has been stagnant in Tanzania and therefore requires the use of technology and research to increase productivity and yields. Proper use of research and technology will increase yields, reduce food prices, reduce risks and increase profits and thus benefit citizens from the integrated system of the agricultural sector.
In order to increase productivity and efficiency in the agricultural sector, FYDP III will focus on the following areas; Crops: The prioritized products are maize, rice, cotton, cashew nut, tea, coffee, tobacco, sisal, palm, wheat, soybean, cocoa, cassava, sugarcane, horticulture and sunflower.
Key interventions include enhance research and development in strategic crops, expand sustainable water and land use management through integrated land use planning and improvement of irrigation systems including construction of water reservoirs and encourage the use of ICT in operation of commercial agriculture Others include enhancing productivity in strategic crop production, strengthening competitive crop value chain and commercialization, encouraging the use of ICT in operation of cooperatives, encouraging the use of ICT in the provision of extension services and introducing modern crop management systems.
