The forum will spotlight the financing of Africa’s agriculture, with a session entitled ‘How to Finance African Agriculture’.

Public-private partnerships are imperative for leveraging the needed funds; sharing the risks of investments; and working together in partnership.

“African bankers will join to discuss these issues. To ensure that the African private sector is engaged in Agribusiness and Agro-industry, it must be organised and mobilised. This is why the Pan African Agribusiness and Agro-Industry Consortium (PanAAC) has been created in 2007 in Johannesburg,” explains Moussa Seck, PanAAC Chairman.

Furthermore, developing private-public partnerships can strengthen democratic institutions of governance, open markets, mobilize and use development resources more effectively.

With over 400 professionals expected to attend, the AgriBusiness Forum 2012 is spotlighting issues that affect countries throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

“Public-Private Partnership is the most significant step that can be taken to ensure sustainability, which has always been part of EMRC mantra. This year’s forum will be an extension of last year’s, where we witnessed Prime Ministers, multinationals, civil society and farmers discussing and envisioning the future of their continent together,” explains Idit Miller, VP & Managing Director at EMRC International.

“We are also highlighting three key issues, which must be considered in order to find real success. Partnership, investment and technology bring much needed funds, expertise and cooperation which no country, region, continent can do without,” adds Caterina Giuliano, EMRC Sr Programme Manager.

Considered one of the meetings of the year in Africa, the Forum is an important opportunity for businesses to share their ambitions for Africa’s Agri-Food sector. Africa contains some 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land.

Through the fostering of the private sector Africa has the potential to double its cereal yields and grow an extra 100 mln tons of food a year.

This would be roughly equivalent to adding another US corn belt to world food production, helping moderate world food price increases, allowing Africa to become a region of food surplus and helping eradicate hunger and poverty.

The forum will begin on the November 25 and ends three days later. It will bring together the sector’s major figures, renown experts, industrialists, financiers, donors, SMEs, small hold farmers as well as multinationals and civil society partners to address “Boosting Africa’s Agriculture through Partnership, Investment and Technology”.

Co-organised by UNDP, co-organisers of AgriBusiness Forum 2011 in Johannesburg, PanAAC and EMRC, and in collaboration with FAO and Rabobank, AgriBusiness Forum 2012 provides a pan-African platform for private, public sector and civil society representatives to present their visions and goals in addition to the Agricultural Exhibition and B2B sessions guaranteeing an environment conducive to launching new partnerships.

AUTHOR: Henry Neondo
URL: http:// www.africasciencenews.org
E-MAIL: neondohenry [at] yahoo.com

Jakaya Kikwete

The Christian Holy Book talks of use of ox-plough several times both in its Old and New Testament but for Jakaya Kikwete, President of the United Republic of Tanzania, nothing testifies of the backwardness of African agriculture than the continued urging of farmers to switch from using hand hoe to ox-ploughing.

“It is now over 2000 years since Jesus of the bible walked on the earth and Africans are still being urged to switch to a technology that is now over 2000 years,” he said adding that on the contrary time was ripe for agricultural experts told Africans on their face to mechanise their farming to achieve food security.

Speaking while officially opening the second African Green Revolution Forum in Arusha, Tanzania, President Kikwete said despite abundance of water and other natural resources, Africa is still incapable of feeding her population because its agriculture remains backward due to application of inappropriate technologies which include traditional farming and dependence on rain.

Coupled with small farm sizes, low fertilizer and pesticide and herbicide use, poor skills and a lack of access to financial services, President Kikwete said it is not surprising that the 80 per cent of who produce food eaten by African population is also the poorest living on less than a dollar a day.

According to research, on average a small-scale farmer in most rural Africa holds less than 2.5 hactares of land and uses less than 8kg of fertilizer per hectare and uses only 10 per cent of the global fertiliser usage.

The continent is also the least irrigated at only 5 per cent compared to Asia at 37% and Latin America 14%.

Kofi Anan, former UN Secretary General and Chairman of the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa said no one can talk of revolutionizing African agriculture without addressing challenges faced by small-scale farmers, 80 per cent of who are women.

Melinda Gates, co-chair, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said tthinking about investment in farming is by building strategies around the small-scale farmer, often a woman…and seeking ways to better things for them taking into account different contexts within which they live.

Jane Karuku, President of AGRA agrees. She said small-scale farming is the business and governments must create enabling environment that would help these farmers realize their potential.

“We can’t increase food production without mobilizing small-scale farmers…their needs and aspirations must be brought at the center of discussions,” added Kofi Anan.

In a global food system under rising pressure, added Anan, Africa is the continent most affected by sharp rises in food prices. Yet it is also the continent, with its abundant land resources with 60 per cent of untapped land, where long-term solutions to global food and nutrition security can be found.

At the 2010 Forum, Mr Annan said a “tipping point” had been reached in the challenge of scaling up Africa’s Green Revolution.

Much had been achieved over the last two years, proving that investments in agriculture work.

African governments must in turn, uphold their end of the bargain.

Agricultural investment must rise to at least the 10 per cent levels of national budget pledged under the 2003 Maputo Declaration. The right policies are also needed to increase public and private investment.

Larger farms also have a critical role to play, particularly in testing and disseminating new technologies and providing opportunities for aggregating smallholder production for market.

Anan asked developed countries and private sector organisations to keep promises of increased support for Africa’s agriculture, despite the uncertainty and fiscal challenges.

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), set up six years ago now operates in 17 sub-Saharan African countries where it is assisting governments and farmers.

Thanks to its activities, farmers have received over 330 new crop varieties developed by AGRA grantees. More than one million smallholder farmers have directly benefited through training on improved storage systems and better post-harvest handling.

According to Anan, the legacy of chronic underfunding in agriculture still remains a challenge for the realisation of the dream of a more prosperous and equitable future for all Africans.

AUTHOR: Henry Neondo
URL: http:// www.africasciencenews.org
E-MAIL: neondohenry [at] yahoo.com

Two years ago Linda Kwamboka, a Business Information Technology graduate teamed up with former colleagues at the Strathmore University in Kenya to start M-Farm Ltd, a software solution and agribusiness company with the hope of changing small scale farmers attitude towards farming and link them to markets.

Jamila Abbas and Susan Ogoya who had studied computer related courses offered their programming creativity to create a tool for farmers where they simply SMS the number 3555 to get information pertaining to the retail price of their products, buy their farm inputs directly from manufacturers at favorable prices, and find buyers for their produce.

Speaking ahead of the Forum which kicks off on Thursday, Kwamboka says that sustainable supplies has been the bane of most buyers as inconsistent supplies from farmers always works against their businesses.

Kenyan farmers, she says are plagued with problems which affect farm productivity and livelihood.

“The scenario has distorted farming in Kenya and works against small scale farmers. Big buyers with money do not find structured environment to trade with small scale farmers instead opt to work with either large scale farmers or turn to foreign markets,” she says.

The result is that small scale farmers get fall prey to middlemen who only offer meager prices for their produce. When they opt for state agencies such as the cereal board, they also face delayed payments and fail to offset cost of crop production.

“All these disillusions farmers who with time begin to fall behind production and lead to food insecurity,” she says.

Kwamboka says for Kenya and indeed Africa to be assured of food security, small scale farmers must be made to change their attitude and outlook on farming. “They must be made to look at their activity not just as supplying food to consumers, but as entrepreneurs or people in serious business,” she said.

M-Farm has slowly begun to do this by connecting them with each other and buyers in a virtual space. With M-Farm, farmers not only get affordable farm inputs but also are able to sell collectively out of discredited, politicised and scandal-riddled cooperatives societies.

M-Farm offers smallholder farmer with three services: price information, collective crop selling, and collective input buying. They are currently collecting wholesale market price information on 42 crops in five markets in Kenya.

Pricing information is collected weekly through independent data collectors using geocoding to ensure that the prices are being collected from wholesale traders actually located in each market.

“We collect wholesale prices of the commodities using data collectors employed to this in five key towns of Mombasa, Nairobi, Kisumu, Eldoret and Kitale and list the information on our price page,” she said.

M-Farm Android App on Samsung App Store

M-Farm partnered with Samsung, a partnership that sees them release their mobile application, which is available on both Android and Samsung’s based phones.

The application, she says is free. One just hits download and gets real time crop prices from M-Farm. “We have a selection of 42 crops to start and prices from the towns and farming regions.

The application delivers the latest prices for over the past five days of the week. “We collect prices Monday to Saturday. One only needs to download and start making deals based on current market prices based on the nearest market we are reporting from,” she says.

This enables the farmer to make informed economic decisions on what to plant when, how to price his produce and where to sell.

How the system works

Farmers join by subscribing to M-Farm by sending and SMS to 3555 “Join FirstName LastName Location” format. The subscription helps them sell their products through M-Farm marketplace.

They tell an M-Farm aggregator employed to oversee an area what crops they are planting, the acreage, when they expect to harvest.

Such an arrangement, she says help M-Farm to aggregate a group of farmers planting the same kind of crop together and help them market their crop as a group to assure buyers with quantity.

With this information, the M-Farm then begins to seek for buyers, using the information some subscribed buyers have entered to link them to farmers who have planted the crop they may need.

Equally, anyone can get crop prices from M-Farm by sending and SMS to 3555 “Price cropname location” format or sell products by subscribing to M-Farm by sending and SMS to 3555 “Sell cropname weight price” format in which case, the seller will also include the product, quantity, and cost per kilogramme of their produce which could be used to help buyers see how best to bargain with the farmers.

Mentorship

M-Farm was launched after winning the IPO48 competition — a 48 hour boot-camp event aimed at giving web/mobile start-ups a platform to launch their start-ups. Of the 37 initial ideas, M-Farm took away the €10,000 prize as capital investment.

As such, M-Farm has from the beginning been linked up with both local and international advisors and consultants in various areas they feel such is needed.

It has partnered with community radio stations across key production regions of Kenya through which they create awareness of their existence and tell farmers and buyers of farm produce of their existence and service. They have also partnered with the Kenya Television through which they pass the market prices across key towns to viewers during the 1 pm news bulletin.

Currently, 5000 farmers, mostly horticultural producers who mostly face storage problems for their perishable goods are hooked to M-farm services.

AUTHOR: Henry Neondo
URL: http:// www.africasciencenews.org
E-MAIL: neondohenry [at] yahoo.com

Dr Dorcas Otieno, the Executive Director, Kenya Organization of Environmental Education (KOEE) said in the sidelines of the ongoing meeting of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation in Nairobi, Kenya that the toolkit recognises that Faiths are managing the youth who represents the future of any society.

Dr Otieno said the toolkit is about sustainable development which espouses values that include a call for respect for the environment, equality in sharing the natural resources and environmental care.

She said these values appeared common and cross cutting through religious groups which included, the Catholic, the Protestant churches, Muslims, and Hindu at meetings held between the KOEE and the Faiths in the recent past.

Dr Otieno said the faiths recognise that the challenges of water, sanitation, and health, agriculture and waste management in the era of climate change need active participation of the Faith to be solved.

She said the toolkit aims to address these issues through empowering the youth and children in Schools and colleges managed by the faiths.
Already, she said, teachers have been identified from 35 schools across the country and trained on how to implement the toolkit.

The teachers have already formed eco-schools that emphasize hands on experience. Out of these, nine schools are already running pilot projects that implement the toolkit with clear demonstration of conservation with religious values.

Dr Otieno said environment care is proving to be one route through which many faiths and religious groups can be united.

Already churches like the Methodist Church in Kenya with three million members, a university, major hospital and 533 schools, has drawn up its own long-term environmental plan. It has commuted to set up an Intensive Agricultural Training Centre to train in environmentally friendly and sustainable farming techniques, and will also organize creation awareness courses in schools and on radio programmes.

“The initiative to draw an environmental policy for our church was born following a conference with ARC in 2011 in Nairobi,” said presiding bishop of the Methodist Church in Kenya Rev Fr Stephen Kanyaru M’Impwii.

ARC’s head of Africa projects Alison Hilliard said it was inspiring to see all the extraordinary work being done by faiths in Africa. “I have been working on these programmes for many years, and I am constantly surprised and moved by the creative and energetic responses from faiths. Each plan is different, according to what the faith can do, and sees is important. I look forward, many years into the future, to seeing the fruits of these extraordinary initiatives being launched today.”

The programme emphasised the centrality in all faiths of thanksgiving and celebration for creation; it included singing and a chanted poem from the choir of All Saints Cathedral Primary School and the girl’s choir from the Muslim Academy, Nairobi.

AUTHOR: Henry Neondo
URL: http:// www.africasciencenews.org
E-MAIL: neondohenry [at] yahoo.com

“In response I felt convicted that Gods’ call is for us to be caring over all that he has given us according to his wisdom and that our failure (sin) has lead to destruction, poverty and death of many. We therefore, as God’s children, must arise to our God-given responsibilities.”

Further north, the Ugandan Muslim Youth Assembly has concentrated on forest and tree planting, with 50,000 trees planted in the past two years, and more than 700,000 trees planned for the next two.

Immam Ibban Iddih Kasozi explained that people are cutting down trees for construction, furniture, and fuel: “Wood is the biggest fuel source in Uganda,” he said. “The only way of ensuring there is wood for the next generations is to do this programme.”

“Our community believes in community work. All is jama, all is congregation: we believe that everything that we do is a prayer: this is why we have undertaken this plan.”

Elimringi Abraham Maringo from the Northern Diocese of the Lutheran Church of Tanzania said a whole generation had grown up never planting a tree and they were the ones cutting the trees down. That is why all faith groups should engage young people in nurturing the care of trees so that this generation loves trees and sees them as their responsibility. The church plans to plant 8.5 million trees.

In Kenya, SUPKEM, an umbrella body of all Muslim organsiations, societies, mosque committees and groups with around six and a half million members across Kenya in over 4 thousand groups committed itself to launch a long-term programme of training for sheikhs, imams and madrasa teachers on the importance of environmental conservation from an Islamic perspective. It commits to getting that message out through local religious FM stations and through Friday prayers and through schools.

It will promote widespread tree planting activities, as tree planting is one of the greatest virtues in Islam- and start work on an educational kit on environmental conservation for use in madrassas.

A similar body in Nigeria, Qadiriyyah Movement, with an estimated 15 million followers, 1500 full time imams and it runs 118 primary schools, 34 secondary schools, two theological colleges and has 8000 mosques committed to develop tree nurseries to supply the schools with seedlings.

At the schools to grow food organically for sale through kiosks in Kano city.

To organise weekly collections of the polythene water bags with up to 120,000 children every week collecting 100 each. These will be recycled or used as tree sapling bags.

To Green the Kano pilgrimage which brings up to 4 million pilgrims to the city and is a commitment as part of the Green Pilgrimage Network launched last year by ARC.

Not to be left behind is the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church with 43.5 million followers in 70,000 parish churches with 6.5 million children in Sunday Schools and 3000 monasteries.

45% of parish churches have forests and 75% of its monasteries are surrounded by faith protected forests. The church and monastery has traditionally been centres for protection of indigenous biodiversity as well as the centre for faith based respect for nature.

Their commitments include creating a full inventory of Church owned forests and developing a protection and management plan for them all.

Create within each monastery a centre for improved technology and skills for sustainable land management.

Install biogas digesters within all monasteries.

In Southern Africa, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa with 10 million believers and around 1000 clergy with 5000 parishes and mission centres in 53 countries committed to establish a new Environmental Centre in Johannesburg as the Church’s main training centre.

All churches will keep September 1 a day of prayer and action on the environment.

The Church will also advocate that no industrial products are brought to Africa and no waste discarded here if the country of origin would not itself accept such products or waste.

The Bhumi Africa, of the Hindu Council of Africa based in Nairobi, Kenya committed to conduct green audits on their buildings and land to be followed by environmental certification which will guide the Hindu community in creating environmentally buildings, manage the environment well and achieve sustainable development.

There are 1.7 million Hindus in Africa with 35,000 in Nairobi itself making up 1% of the city’s population. Between them they have set up 27 temples, 40 social, cultural and sports facilities, 22 schools, 9 medical facilities and 10 written and radio media outlets.

Hindu festivals add colour to our heritage and lives. However celebrating some of these festivals significantly contributes to pollution and waste. As part of their commitment Hindu communities will be encouraged and assisted to green these events by greatly reducing waste and pollution.

They will also phase out the use of plastic bags by introducing Bhumi bags, durable bags made from hemp to be promoted by Hindu temples, schools and shops.

AUTHOR: Henry Neondo
URL: http:// www.africasciencenews.org
E-MAIL: neondohenry [at] yahoo.com

Brewing was an early application of biotechnology

While realistic liability and redress provisions are necessary for responsible development and deployment of genetically modified products, African countries should however be careful about imposing strict liability provisions that undermine advancement of biotech research and development, biotechnology and biosafety experts meeting in Pretoria, South Africa have cautioned.

The preparatory meeting of delegates from 15 African countries which are signatories to Cartagena Protocol commences and organized by the AU-NEPAD Agency Africa Biosafety Network of Expertise (ABNE), Government of the Republic of South Africa, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Africabio, the Program for Biosafety Systems (PBS), Public Research and Regulation Initiative (PRRI) and the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) AfriCenter said all over Africa, there is a clear sense of urgency to move forward with biotechnology applications of priority to Africa as well as creating a framework where Africa can exploit the knowledge and experiences from elsewhere.

They said this is buoyed by the increasingly loud voice of African countries on issues touching on biotechnology and biosafety.

They however urged African countries to push for their own agenda to ensure alignment with their needs and ambitions.

“African countries should be conscious of the different interests of partners and should carefully select partners that are aligned with their own policy priorities,” warned the experts.

They cited the Supplementary Protocol saying it should be used as a guide for putting in place a workable and fair liability and redress framework.

They urged the African countries to follow up on the ratification/accession process and suggested that national implementation can include the use of existing liability and redress instruments or the development of new ones at the national level.

The experts advised those African countries which may require assistance in domesticating the Supplementary Protocol to seek the support from countries with capacity to do so.

AUTHOR: Henry Neondo
URL: http:// www.africasciencenews.org
E-MAIL: neondohenry [at] yahoo.com

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa has intervened into the mater and has directed the police to take steps for attaching, through courts, properties of companies that ran emu farms and repaying the amounts invested by thousands of depositors.

Emu birds are imported from Australia and are members of the ratite family of birds. They stand about 5 ft tall and are known for their grunting and hissing sound. Emus have three forward pointing toes; the underside of each is flat with a broad pad that makes their legs strong for running.

Emu birds are very costly. Its eggs cost about Rs. 1200 to Rs. 1500 and meat sold for 500 rupees per kilo. Emus oil has anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties. It’s because of all these attractions; emu farming is a lucrative business in Tamil Nadu.

Even banks are offering loan and as a result, large number farms have come up in this southern state of India. Companies such as Susi Emu Farms, Asian Farms, Queen Farms, Alma Farms, Nidhi Farms, all have well established businesses. Among them Susi Emu farms, in erode Perundhurai, was the first to launch this business in Tamil Nadu.

There are also contract farmers in this business who help grow emus and return them during their breeding time. About 40 firms in Perundurai and its surroundings are involved in the contract farming, some companies even buy the grown up chicks.

There are many companies who have signed contract with the investors offering them good returns on their investment. Investors were lured into the business with the promise that emus presented a good return. Many investors paid up to Rs 40,000 per pair of emus, trusting that the bird’s meat, egg, chick may give good return to their investment.

Emus business was roaring as long as investors were getting good returns. However, their hopes were dashed to ground when their regular income stopped and some farm owners went missing. There was panic all around and complaints of cheating started pouring in against leading players in the emu farming business.

More than 3000 investors registered their complaints against various emu farming companies, of which around 700 were against Susi Emu Farms alone. The enormity of the complaint was such that police had to rent a marriage hall and set up special counters to receive complaints in Erode district. It also setup camps in each district to receive complaints from the investors.

With owners of many emu farms going underground, hundreds of emu birds were left abandoned and were pushed to the state of starvation. Many died due to lack of food as suppliers stopped supplies as companies owned them huge payments. Emus require minimum of 750 grams of feed per day.

On coming to know about the plight of the birds, the district administration of Erode made temporary arrangement to supply feed to about 7,000 emu birds at Susi Emu Farms located there. However, there was no commitment from any quarters about the maintenance of abandoned birds in other farms.

With the emu bubble bursting, the questions were asked who will take care of thousands of emu birds in the state. There are very few takers for them in the local market and disposing them off soon was not an easy option.

Thanks to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who intervened into the matter and directed the police to attach properties of companies that ran emu farms. She also asked the Animal Husbandry Department to arrange feed and provide medical care to the birds abandoned by the farm owners.

However, animal rights group were not satisfied and demanded a complete ban on emu farming in the country. “People are being duped and the birds are paying the price for it. We want complete prohibition of emu farming to rule out more people and birds being victimized in this failed business venture” said Arpan Sharma, CEO of Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organization.

It remains to be seen whether Tamil Nadu story of emu bird farming will provide lessons to other such framings in the country. The lure to make quick bucks is driving many farmers to go for new and unconventional methods of farming. If such businesses fail, its nightmare for them and the issue thus becomes part of the jigsaw puzzle that’s related farmer’s suicide in India.

AUTHOR: Mujtaba Syed
URL: http://mujtabas-musings.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: syedalimujtaba [at] yahoo.com

“Individually both governments and business have already mobilized significant resources to address the challenge of deforestation but we all recognize that much more can be achieved if we align our efforts and work in partnership,” said Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever.

The US Government invited other countries, companies, and civil society leaders to join the effort to develop joint policy recommendations and an action plan to promote sustainable food production, while also protecting and conserving forests.

“I am so pleased to see the United States Government and major companies beginning to take a leadership role in protecting the environment. We environmentalists can only do so much. It truly takes all of us working together to heal the planet,” said Jane Goodall, co-Chair of the event.

“The private sector needs to put people and the planet at the center of all we do,” said Richard Branson, CEO of the Virgin Group. “Together we need to face critical challenges, including finding ways to harness and protect our natural assets—including the last remaining tropical forests. The planet won’t wait.”

Ted Turner, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and the second largest landowner in the United States, also voiced support. “The message of this event is very timely. Our land-based resources are dwindling, and so we must be responsible stewards by reducing wasteful consumption and agricultural practices and promoting sustainable uses that protect the environment while continuing to feed growing populations,” he said.

Jeff Horowitz, founder of Avoided Deforestation Partners who organized the event was “extremely pleased to see governments and corporations make such extraordinary commitments”. He added, “We believe this partnership can be a game changer with the potential to transform how we grow our food, fuel and fiber, with immediate and dramatic effects on efforts to slow, halt and reverse deforestation.”

AUTHOR: Richard Matthews
URL: http://thegreenmarket.blogspot.com/
E-MAIL: smallbusinessconsultants [at] gmail.com

A few days letter journalists were invited to the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam to receive good news about the green revolution in Tanzania, dubbed Kilimo Kwanza. But this news was not received without skepticism.

Dan Mrutu, CEO of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGGOT) gave hope to Tanzanians that Kilimo Kwanza will rescue them from poverty, as the majority of the citizenry depend on agriculture, although there is a need for a major revolution in it.

He is optimistic that within a few years, there will be gradual transformations in the sector leading to self-sufficiency in foodstuff and an excess for export, given the conducive environment for investment in this area that the government is providing.

“It is true that the Kilimo Kwanza initiative will bring fundamental changes in Tanzania, but this cannot be expected to happen overnight, there is a need to wait for other developments to support it, such as infrastructure, rural electrification and construction of enough warehouses,” he commented.

This was after a good number of journalists attending the event queried the efficacy of this initiative, which they saw as sidelining the ordinary peasant farmer while at the same time promoting the well-to-do – who have decided to venture into agriculture in order to obtain donors’ money.

Mrutu criticized those who do not see anything good in the initiative, by saying that the hand-hoe is now outdated and the replacement of this mode of production is a matter of necessity.

His critics maintained that the initiative was good but there was a need to improve the lot of the peasant farmers whose mainstay is agriculture rather than to exclude them, in a process which will eventually increase poverty in the rural areas.

But Ms Janet Bitegeko, executive director of the Agricultural Council of Tanzania (ACT), supports Mrutu by saying there have been big improvements in agriculture resulting from the implementation of this initiative.

“I have been in the sphere of agriculture for more than 25 years, it is worthwhile to appreciate the gains of this initiative, because the benefits are many, ranging from improved food security to the creation of jobs, and the attracting of more participants,” she defended.

She asked critics to give more time to the initiative, because currently it is still in its infancy stage. She sees the prospects not in their commercial aspects only but also in the general improvement of nutrition in this country.

Her view was also shared by Isaka Mashauri, who said that his organization has gained a lot from this initiative, although he was aware that there are some complaints that the initiative was not beneficial universally.

Mashauri, who is the managing director and CEO of Tanseed, confesses that Kilimo Kwanza has come at a good time because now people will realize how much potential agriculture has after so many years of its neglect.

“I can assure you the potential is there, but the primary agency for increased agricultural output will be small farmers, and for increased exports of what have traditionally been called food crops, but this needs other supporting systems like road infrastructure and rural electrification,” he commented.

Mashauri, who spoke exclusively to this reporter shortly after the press conference at the Embassy, said that the role of the state will be to provide the conditions for this, and keep its own costs down but also he admitted that there was a need to change the mindsets of many government functionaries so that they may support this goal.

But these sweet words from the supporters of Kilimo Kwanza have met with very much criticism from other circles. For instance, a prominent economist and four times presidential aspirant, Prof Ibrahim Lipumba, says the initiative is more of a disguise than a blessing.

Lipumba, who has worked for very many years as lecturer in economics before venturing into active politics in the mid 90s, says the initiative is good theoretically but its practical side is not good.

He was speaking in an exclusive interview with a lecturer at the School of Journalism of the University of Dar es Salaam, Ayub Rioba, on the Mlimani Television channel on Thursday last week.

“Good as it might appear, Kilimo Kwanza has sidelined the peasant farmer to the extent that it has increased rural poverty, which is not good, because there are people who are getting benefits from the same programme at the expense of the poor majority,” he commented.

But this stance is also supported by statistics from the Legal and Human Rights Centre showing that conflicts have been on the increase since the introduction of this scheme, in as much as the well-to-do have grabbed the opportunities and are denying the same share to the majority, who are poor peasants.

According to the 2011 Tanzanian Human Rights Report, which was released on Monday this week, Kilimo Kwanza was singled out as being a catalyst for land-grabbing, which has sidelined small farmers and pastoralists.

In page 171 of the report the findings say: “during the 2011 human rights survey, the LHRC interviewed 890 people from different parts of this country. The basic question was: ‘Do farmers benefit from the Kilimo Kwanza response policy?’

“The findings were that 67.6% of respondents said farmers do not benefit from Kilimo Kwanza, while 32.2 answered this question positively,” says the report.

As has been mentioned several times by other commentators, the scheme was or is good theoretically and for the fact that it has managed to attract donor attention, but in essence there are many areas which need to be tackled in order to make it more reliable and profitable to the ordinary wananchi, the citizenry.

To confirm this even further, there is this comment again in the same report from the LHRC on the same page; “the fertilizer subsidy, seeds and agricultural improvements are supplied to well-to-do people, and very little is for peasants with low income,”.

In other words, the poor peasants can now feel the pain of their own dilemma, after having been sidelined for a number of years by the political elite, due to their ignorance.

The same interviewee concluded by saying, “we have been demoralized by the payments of the voucher system as well as by the little land available for farming, Kilimo Kwanza is of no benefit,” he concluded.

So while politicians might consider these criticisms as merely campaigns to sabotage their work, in fact these criticisms are ‘evidence-based’. Last Sunday, Star Television ran a programme which held similar complaints.

The Executive Director of HakiArdhi, Yefred Miyenzi, was quoted as saying: “So many cases have been filed after large-scale farmers have grabbed land for big investment schemes in agriculture”.

He revealed that his organization had decided to train journalists, after realizing that so many such cases were being reported, but the scribes did not have the proper requisite knowledge to report properly matters concerning land-grabbing.

“There is a need to train journalists in legal knowledge and investigative journalism, so that they can unveil the bigwigs who operate behind the scenes,’” he commented.

He also counseled scribes to enlighten peasants to know their rights, and seek for more in the constitution-formulation process which is going on now in Tanzania.

He criticized certain village executive officers who conspire with bigwigs in the land-grabbing process. This goes that after the corrupt investors have made plans to secure loans from the Kilimo Kwanza Intiative, they then use village leaders to convene meetings and pay the villagers as little as Tsh 2000/=, so that they can release portions of land to the investors.

“After they have taken the money and allowed their land to go they find themselves empty-handed, but due to the contracts they have signed they cannot recover their land easily,” he commented.

But even more striking was the revelation in the same programme by Ms Pendo Omary, who said that during her surveys, which were sponsored by the Tanzania Media Women’s Association, (TAMWA), she discovered that land-grabbing has led to an increase in family conflicts.

She narrated that some greedy men do not consult their wives whenever they want to apportion pieces of land to the bigwigs who approach them, albeit clandestinely, to the extent that when women come to discover the facts, the men tend to run away from their families leaving their wives with the heavy task of supporting their children.

“In my research in Kilolo district I discovered that Kilimo Kwanza has caused a lot of problems, because it did not target helping the small farmers, instead it has removed them from their traditional jobs and hence they have become paupers in the urban centres,” she commented.
Joseph Chombola, lawyer at HakiArdhi, says the ‘pirates’ in the land-grabbing manoeuvre take advantages of the weaknesses in the legal system, or lack of knowledge of the majority poor, in order to accomplish their mission.

He concludes by saying that the eventual long term results are that land-grabbing increases poverty in the whole country, after increasing the number of dependants.

AUTHOR: Elias Mhegera
URL: http://mhegeraelias.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: mhegeraelias [at] yahoo.com

Source: NASA.

Between 7-12 May, NL-Aid is enjoying a spring recess. From 13 May, you can read articles of our authors again. Untill that time, we have selected Youtube videos in which the strength of people is centered;). In this episode: Land Area Gross Primary Productivity.

Human Consumption of Global Plant Production

AUTHOR: Hans Sluijter
URL: www.NL-Aid.org
E-MAIL: info [at] www.NL-Aid.org