For more than four decades Tanzania has been struggling to spur economic growth and eliminate poverty. But by any standard achievement of this goal is not near sight. The Poverty and Human Development Report 2007, indicates that the proportion of the population that cannot meet their daily basic needs has declined by only 2.4 percent from 35.7 percent between 2001 and 2007. At the same time, the number of people living in poverty has increased by 1.0 million people from 11.7 million. Although poverty affects both urban and rural people, it is those living in the rural areas who are hit hard. This accentuates the notion that poverty is basically a rural phenomenon. Based on this trend the MKUKUTA and the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of reducing income poverty to 19% by 2010 and 2015 respectively will be missed.
This observation is an eye opener on the likely failure of whatever model pursued by government to achieve economic growth through agriculture. Asian countries, previously at equal footing with Tanzania have tremendously revolutionalised their agriculture and transformed their economies. Of recent, Malawi, a country with food deficit for several years is now with food surplus and even donating maize to neighbouring countries of Lesotho and Swaziland. Ethiopia is another good example in the making. The achievements of Malawi and Ethiopia have not happened by chance. It is a result of committed leadership that is willing to do the right things with the right magnitude on the right path to agricultural development. Both countries have already met the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) target of allocating at least 10% of national budgets to agriculture. For example, in 2007 agriculture made up 12 percent of the national budget in Malawi and 11 percent in Ethiopia as compared to only 6.2 percent for Tanzania during the same year. This year the government has increased the proportion of agriculture in the national budget by only 0.7 percent to 6.9 percent, and has intensified propaganda to make the public feel that agriculture has now assumed first priority in government plans in what it termed “Kilimo Kwanza”.
In order to speed up the process of transforming agriculture in Tanzania, it is imperative to understand the context of the challenges facing farmers in the country while drawing lessons from those who have made it like India and Mexico or those who are on the route to success like Malawi and Ethiopia. Success of green revolution in a country like ours is hinged on the understanding that over 90 percent of agricultural output is produced by smallholder farmers scattered in rural communities all over the country. They spend hours and hours of backbreaking labour to produce very little from their farms because of numerous constraints facing them.
Well-thought plans are required to empower them. Prof. Sanchez who co-chairs the Hunger Task Force of the Millennium Project of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals observes that what rural African farmers need is empowerment. They need the right quantity and quality of fertilizer at the right time, credit support to enhance and expand their holdings, efficient crop processing capabilities to add value to farm produce, and good market outlets to sell their harvests. However, a critical observer would quickly sense that there is nothing new in Prof. Sanchez’s assertion. Between 2003/4 and 2008/9 the government of Tanzania spent TSh. 128.7 billions to subsidise 487,984 tons of fertiliser to smallholder farmers. Furthermore, during the same period Tanzania subsidised 1,071 tones of seeds and 13,700,000 seedlings to farmers; and through the District Agriculture Development Plans (DADPS) it has provided loan to farmers for buying 186 power tillers and allocated approximately 8 billions to irrigation. Whether all this money reaches beneficiaries and has resulted into improved agricultural productivity is a debatable issue.
Out of frustration one may ask; why then is green revolution taking too long to achieve in Tanzania? The answers to this questions lies in the fact that Tanzania hasn’t been lucky enough to have unequivocally committed person among policy makers who is willing to liberate farmers from the shackles of poverty. We can have beautiful plan to support agriculture and spend billions of money on those plans, but if we are lacking a person who is committed body and soul to see to it that changes really happen on the ground, not much would be realised. Such extra commitment is vital because not everything can be coded in the project documents. Those leading agricultural development programmes in Tanzania are people appointed on the criteria best known to the appointing authority; they have little to demonstrate their commitment and interest in agriculture.
The situation is different in the countries that have succeeded in green revolution. The success revolves around a person. The success of green revolution in Mexico is attributed to the then Mexican President, Ávila Comacho whose keen interest to move agriculture beyond subsistence farming, made him work out an agreement with the Rockefeller Foundation to carryout an intensive breeding program that resulted into wheat varieties that sparked the green revolution. In India the success is attributed to the then Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan who despite bureaucratic hurdles invited Dr. Norman Borlaug under the Ford Foundation to replicate the Mexican success. The success of the “white revolution” in India (an equivalent to green revolution in the livestock sector) is due to Dr. Verghese Kurien who architected the “Operation Flood” the largest dairy development programme in the world that saw India becoming the largest milk producer in the world. Lastly, the recent success of Malawian agriculture is credited to the Malawian President, Bingu wa Mutharika who appointed himself minister of agriculture in order to have direct supervision of agricultural development programs and ensure that their outputs and impacts are maximised. In the Tanzanian context whose commitment emulates the people mentioned above? The urge to transform agriculture is mere lip service. We should not forget that people do not eat words; concrete pragmatic plans are needed to translate those words into improved livelihood of the people especially those in the captivity of agriculture.
By Dr. Damian M. Gabagambi, SUA
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