A butcher slices a piece of meat in butchery in Arusha Tanzania. |
Some communities in
Longido District, including the Maasai, have eventually embraced
farming initiatives and indoor cattle grazing after being enlightened
extensively on the good virtues of refraining from nomadic life and
environmental protection.
The communities,
some of which are nomadic, have now agreed to settle down, till the
land, raise cattle hybrid cattle in herds and take their children to
school. The communities have also been trained on how to work on farms
and raise hybrid cattle.
The entire
initiative has been spearheaded by Kilimanjaro National Park (Kinapa)
which wants to see a lot of newly planted trees, thriving food crops,
healthy cattle and improving climate conditions. The district has in the
past been devastated by prolonged drought spells.
It is hats off to
Kilimanjaro National Park officials, who have also initiated a
two-million shilling dairy goat project in the district, for starters.
When addressing a rally at Loliondo in October 2010, former President
Jakaya Kikwete told livestock keepers, some of whom were also farmers,
to grow high quality pasture for their cattle.
He also said that
the livestock policy calls for rearing of better quality hybrid cattle.
In fact, the policy encourages cattle keepers to grow cattle feeds that
would save their animals from starvation during droughts or floods prone
areas.
He called for
smaller but healthier herds. The former president also said that
livestock research centres would be enabled to produce higher-value
hybrid bulls that would be distributed to cattle keepers in a quest to
produce heftier cattle that would produce more meat and more milk.
Well, not much has
been done since that year. Despite owning large herds of cattle,
Tanzanians are poor eaters of meat and even poorer drinkers of their own
milk. The nation slaughters 1,500,000 cattle; 2,500,000 goats and 550,
000 sheep on average every year.
But the citizens of
this considerably wealthy nation eat only 11 kilos of meat individually
every year which is "very low" as compared to the 50 kilos recommended
by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Milk drinking rates are
equally miserable.
The nation has a
huge task in its hands. Apart from enlightening its citizens on the good
virtues of eating enough meat and drinking much milk, efforts should be
made to ensure that exports of live cattle taper off and that more
cattle products are exported. Tanzania may have a large herd of cattle,
but, paradoxically, there are districts or even whole regions where
cow's milk or beef is virtually unheard of.
The nation has more
than 22 million head of cattle. It comes third in Africa in this aspect
after Ethiopia and Sudan. What the National Assembly heard sometime
last year is difficult to decipher.
The august House
was told that Tanzania exported more than 880 tonnes of meat worth
28.8bn/- the year before and that business keeps booming. The country
also exported 126.2 tonnes of beef; 88.4 tonnes of mutton and 667 tonnes
of goat meat. The lawmakers were also told that seven new meat
processing plants and 67 diary products factories would be built.
Perhaps the main
pitfall in this business is the stark reality that the nation exports
live cattle as well, instead of the more lucrative products alone. The
main importers of live cattle (and products) are Comoro, Burundi,
Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Live cattle and products are
also shipped to neighbouring countries with Kenya in the lead. The other
canker is that this nation has virtually failed to improve the genetic
quality of its herd of cattle.
The short horn Zebu
and Ankole remains dominant in the herd. These produce too little meat
and insignificant amounts of milk and other products. A new livestock
policy, however, calls for rearing of better quality hybrid cattles.
The policy
encourages cattle keepers to grow cattle feeds that would save their
animals from starvation when droughts or floods hit. Smaller but
healthier herds are much better.
It is imperative to
mention here that some farmers in this country get a raw deal when
their tracts of farmland are passed to so-called investors with little
or no compensation at all. This is land grabbing which is, indeed, an
abominable felony; no wonder foreign investors are not taken kindly in
some localities.
It is worthwhile to
point out here that this is an undesirable practice that is knocking
small-scale farmers off their feet not only in Tanzania but also in
other African countries and farther afield. Perhaps the decision to
limit land allocations will lessen the problem.
Many kind-hearted
activists around the world have raised concerns that poor villagers,
including those in Tanzania, will be forced off their land and
agribusinesses in the near future, a sorry spectacle that will
marginalize subsistence farming. But greedy land grabbers say that
foreign investment can help poor countries create jobs, increase export
earnings and use more advanced technologies.
This could be the
case if these so-called investors treated the losers of land kindly. But
many investments have failed due to insufficient soil fertility,
financing difficulties or over-ambitious business plans.
In Tanzania, for
example, some large biofuels projects have now been abandoned. But the
land still remains in the hands of the "looters." Even where investments
are profitable, it is often difficult to see how they contribute to
poverty reduction.
The jobs created
are few, short-lived and low-paid - and public revenues are limited by
tax exemptions. So, some of the poorest wananchi in this country are
losing their land, water and natural resources that have supported their
livelihoods for generations.
It is these poor
farmers who have provided the backbone of the economy for long. They
should be protected. Agriculture is the foundation of the Tanzanian
economy.
It accounts for
about half of the national income, three quarters of merchandise exports
and is source of food and provides employment opportunities to about 80
percent of Tanzanians.
This is the reality
on the ground and there is, seemingly, nothing wrong with it.
Agriculture has linkages with the non-farm sector through
agro-processing, consumption and export. It also provides raw materials
to industries and a market for manufactured goods.
Unfortunately,
agriculture in Tanzania is dominated by smallholder farmers (peasants)
who cultivate average farm sizes of between 0.9 hectares and 3.0
hectares each. This also means about about 70 percent of Tanzania's crop
area is cultivated by hand hoe. But it should also be understood that
20 percent of the farmland is tilled by oxen ploughs and 10 percent by
tractors.
It is also
unfortunate that Tanzania depends on rain-fed agriculture. Food crop
production dominates the agriculture economy. About 5.1 million hectares
are cultivated annually, of which 85 percent are under food crops.
Women, it has been
established, constitute the main part of agricultural labour force. The
major constraint facing the agriculture sector is the falling labour and
land productivity due to application of poor technology, dependence on
unreliable and irregular weather conditions. Both crops and livestock
are adversely affected by periodical droughts.
Irrigation holds
the key to stabilizing agricultural production in Tanzania to improve
food security, increase farmers' productivity and incomes, and also to
produce higher valued crops such as vegetables and even flowers.
Urban agriculture
has flourished as a household - level initiative to cope with economic
hardships encountered as a result of raising cost of living. Urban
agriculture that consists of raising and growing of vegetables, Fruits
and food crops is found in Tanzanian towns and cities where the ready
market for agricultural products are found.
Producers of
vegetables, Fruits, milk, broilers' meat and eggs sell to private
households and to schools, hotels, hospitals, bars, cafeterias and
restaurants.
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