We have every reason to be happy and proud about the economic performance of our country so far. Not many countries in Africa, let alone the world have an economy that is growing at such a good rate – above 6 percent per year. Yes, we have the nagging question: where does the money go? In the last columns I have tried to point out the reason why this impressive growth does not seem to be going a long way towards improving the well being of the majority of Tanzanians. Essentially, the reason for this lies in the fact that the majority of Tanzanians are not participating in the sectors that are contributing substantially to the growth of the economy. Our evidence for this assertion comes from the fact that while the sectors of mining, communications, services, tourism, infrastructure, industries, etc. have been registering impressive growth rates, agriculture, the sector that employs the majority of Tanzanians, has been registering low growth rates.

We know all the reasons as to why the agriculture sector that employs the majority of Tanzanians has had low growth rates for most of the years since independence. In the first place, we do not have ‘farmers’ as the word means but small scale farmers. They produce on a small scale and therefore at high unit cost because they use low technology i.e.  the hand hoe rather than the plough that is used by a typical farmer. They do not practice modern farming which involves the application of best practices in farming. This is because they have a low level of education. Most of the agriculture is rain fed agriculture. When rains fail there is practically no farm produce.
 Most of the small scale farmers have hardly enough time to take proper care of their farms. This again leads to poor harvests. At harvest time, there is substantial loss of produce because of poor harvest technologies. Storage of the produce is also of a crude nature and therefore farther loss of farm produce. After harvest, there is hardly any reliable and profitable channel for selling the surplus produce that may be produced by the small scale farmer. This fact reduces farther the incentive for the small scale farmer to expand his farm production. Well the list of problems of the small scale farmer of Tanzania is long.
The however question is: are we as a country taking the necessary steps to make the agriculture sector produce more than it is doing so far? Let us look at the steps the country is taking with regard to improving the rural areas and the agriculture sector, in particular. One of the major reasons why the agriculture sector is backward is that it is being run by people with limited formal education. This fact limits their ability to learn and assimilate new ways of doing things. Once we have an agriculture sector that is run and managed by educated people we should expect better performance of the sector. The government is fast expanding the provision of secondary and higher education in the country. Every ward now has a secondary school up to form IV.
The next step should naturally be every village to have a secondary school. This will mean that the lowest level of educational attainment will be form IV. That will be the beginning of the transformation of the rural areas. For the secondary school leavers to be able to transform the rural areas, it is necessary to ensure that they get quality education by equipping the schools with the required qualified __
teachers and other learning facilities. The secondary schools’ syllabus should also be modified to include the role of agriculture in the economic development of the country. This is because not all who will finish secondary education will be able to go for higher education, and not all those who will get higher education will be able to be employed in the non-agriculture sectors.
KILIMO KWANZA is a major policy document that is focusing on the most important but neglected sector, agriculture. A lot of very good good ideas are in the policy document of KILIMO KWANZA. What is contained in the document creates a situation which reminds me of an English idiom which states ‘if wishes were horses beggars would ride’. The main challenge that is posed by what is contained in the policy document is whether our leaders can ‘walk the talk’ and make the agriculture sector the mainstay of our country’s economy. In order to make agriculture the mainstay of our economy we must first be inward looking in our approach.
It is ok to invite foreign investors to come and give our agriculture sector some boost. But it should be remembered that when foreign investment comes to the agriculture sector the main concern will be the profitability of their investments. The profits that will be earned from investing in our agriculture sector will largely be repatriated to where the capital came from. Yes, Tanzanians will have gained in terms of wages from employment in the large plantations, but I doubt if the wages will be enough to deal a serious blow to endemic poverty hat the country is facing. Moreover, foreign investors, once the investment becomes less profitable, will migrate elsewhere in search of more profitable opportunities. When that happens, the country will be left with hapless ex-plantation workers who will not know what to do.
It is therefore necessary to implement the policy measures that are contained in the KILIMO KWANZA document with the express focus on promoting Tanzania farmers. That will be the correct way towards transforming the country’s rural sector. The issues that need to be addressed in order to modernize agriculture are many. The first step of having educated farmers is well under way. This step needs to be revamped by having ward secondary schools well equipped with qualified teachers and adequate teaching facilities. The second issue concerns land ownership. The government deserves credit for initiating legally recognizable land ownership through the MKURABITA programme. In this regard it remains to be seen whether our banks will recognize the title deeds that have been issued under this programme.
The third issue is credit for the agriculture sector, in particular to the small scale farmers. Again, although with credit going to the government for earmarking the Tanzania Investment Bank as the bank for farmers, one wonders how the small scale farmer from Kigoma or Ruvuma will be able to travel all the way to DSM for a loan. I think it is fair to say that this bank is mainly for the already established large scale farmers. Finally, is the issue of extension services. In this regard the government is doing well in training more extension officers. For them to be effective they will need to be provided with transport and their work will have to be supervised.