TANZANIA NEEDS TO INCREASE FOCUS ON AGRICULTURE INVESTMENT TO IMPROVE FOOD SECURITY ...

By Friday Simbaya recently in Njombe

Tanzania needs to increase focus on industrialization and agriculture investment in order to improve food security for the citizens, WWF Tanzania’s Country Director said.

Dr. Amani Ngusaru said recently that the vibrant agriculture sector not only feeds the people, it creates jobs, it generates wealth and it will keep people on the land.

He said the key to poverty eradication, high unemployment rates and overdependence on exports of primary products that underdeveloped nations are facing lies in scaling up of the agriculture and industrialization agenda.

He made the disclosure on Friday during the WWF - Ruaha Water Program-SWAUM exit workshop held in Njombe Region.

WWF in collaboration with Care International is intending to implement Intensive Farming (IF) project in some parts of the country including Iringa, Morogoro and Coast regions but the focus will be the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT).

He said when agriculture and industrialization is in full swing, it creates a demand for specialized skills and increased labour demand which can be addressed through emerging industries that are a result of growth in the manufacturing sector.

He said industrialization drive of current government will create new markets and linkages, promoting supporting industries which will in turn contribute to Tanzania’s economic growth.

However, the WWF country director is calling on researchers, scientists and developers to create weather and climate center to help farmers plan for the future and to educate the public about the vulnerability of climate change.

He said that this effort will help give communities and farmers across the country the information and tools they need to plan for current and future climate impacts.

He said farmers are confused because they don’t when the rains are coming, they don't know when to cultivate and to plant, but with the investment in climate data initiative (CDI), it will help them to plan for current and future climate impacts. 

So, agricultural intensification and mechanization system is aimed to maximize yields from available land through various means, such as use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. 

However, WWF Tanzania has been working in the Great Ruaha River catchment (GRRC) with a focus on promoting and improving integrated water resources management since 2002. 

Throughout the intervening period however the once perennial Great Ruaha River (GRR) has run dry in the dry season for progressively longer periods.

Throughout the period 2011-2016 WWF Tanzania has been piloting the SWAUM programme – Sustainable Water Access, Use and Management. 

SWAUM was explicitly framed and designed to address a situation – shortfalls in water governance in the GRR catchment – that was understood to be ‘complex’ (i.e. widespread conflicts and disagreements, knowledge gaps and uncertainties, and weak organizational capacity).

“…has sought to identify and address the institutional constraints, within and between both formal organizations and local communities,” he said. 

Lack of awareness or acknowledgment of these strategic constraints, and of any commensurate response, considerably weakened or undermined the effectiveness and potential sustainability of earlier management and technical initiatives.

SWAUM’s empirical findings are that there are systemic shortcomings in aspects of integration critical to the governance system – the ‘critical dimensions of integration’ (CDIs) – and given the continuing deference to IWRM as the governance model in the Rufiji Basin IWRMD Plan. 

It is said that unless these shortcomings are addressed, the pattern of governance failure will not be broken, nor the associated drying of the GRR reversed.