The Toxicity of the Vegetables we Consume Everyday

VEGETABLES have always been an important part of our meals on a daily basis bearing in mind their importance in terms of nutrients they provide to our bodies for growth and immunity against diseases.

Hardly do we ask ourselves as to the manner in which they are grown or prepared for the market. What matters, it seems, is to have them on the table.

But the findings of a recent study by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) could make us think otherwise.

The study, whose report has just been released at the on-going World Water Week Conference in Stockholm-Sweden, revealed that waste water use was common in urban agriculture worldwide posing health risks to consumers.

“Waste water is widely used to irrigate urban agricultural land in developing countries, a practice that has both advantages and disadvantages,” the 53-city study reveals.

According to the report, waste water agriculture contributes importantly to urban food supplies and helps provide a livelihood for the poor, but can also lead to health risks for consumers, particularly for vegetables consumed uncooked or poorly prepared.

Waste water has a “large potential... for both helping and hurting great numbers of urban consumers,” IWMI researcher, Liqa Raschid-Sally, said during the global water conference.

The survey showed that 80 percent of cities studied were using untreated or partially treated waste water for agriculture posing serious health risks to consumers of the food produced.

“In over 70 percent of the cities studied, more than half of the urban agricultural land was irrigated with waste water and the same was being used primarily to produce vegetables and rice,” it says.

The report says that the practice is being used on 20 million hectares of land, especially in Asian countries like China, India and Vietnam, but also “nearly every city of sub-Saharan Africa and in many Latin American cities as well.”

In Ghana’s capital Accra, for example, which has almost two million inhabitants, some 200,000 city residents purchase vegetables each day produced on just 100 hectares of urban agricultural land irrigated with waste water, the report says.

However, the report did not call for a ban on the use of waste water, saying such a move could “adversely affect urban consumers, farmers and others who depend on urban agriculture.”

Instead, it urged local authorities to develop policies for safer waste water use, and advocated low-cost measures such as the use of drip irrigation, correct washing of produce, and waste water storage ponds to allow suspended solids to settle-out.

Perhaps it’s important to describe what waste water is so as to keep track of our discussion.

Waste water could be defined in terms of its source, composition, the manner of transmission or where it’s found.

This includes water transmitted through storm water drains and other similar channels. The source of this water in storm water drains can be from industries can be mixed with seepage water or even rain water.

It can also come from other activities such as car washing or food processing. Waste water also includes used domestic and sewerage water from houses and institutions.

All these ‘types’ of waste water carry different compositions (chemical and biological) some of which have the potential of posing health risks.

That’s why there have always been reports in the media raising concerns over the effects of urban agriculture especially vegetable growing to consumers of the produced food.

In March this year the Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), which is part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reported from Dakar, Senegal that some of the vegetables sold in urban areas are toxic.

In the report titled ‘Toxic Vegetables for Sale’ quoted some vegetable growers in the city’s outskirts admitting that they were applying ‘dangerous’ levels of pesticides, fertilizers and other toxic substances such as waste water to improve the colour and growth of the crops.

“We (the cultivators) are…careless about people’s health. Even producers are not well protected,” IRIN quotes Babacar Wade, who was one of the farmers from Kounoune village, 40 kilometres east of Dakar.

He was growing lettuce, cabbage, parsley, aubergine, peppers, and okra some of the most coveted vegetables for export from Senegal, IRIN reported.

In the same story, IRIN quotes Amadou Diouf, an agricultural engineer who said such kind of the health risk was rife across the country.

“Some gardeners respect none of the health standards, they use waste-water or inappropriate pesticides at any dose and at any time. The risks are very serious for producers and consumers,” he said.

According to him, the toxicity levels that result can lead to “acute poisoning which can cause headaches, vomiting, anxiety, loss of sight, while chronic poisoning can cause toxicity, infertility in women and impotence in men.

As the report by the IWMI has indicated, this problem is common in most of our developing countries Tanzania not an exception.

In Dar es Salaam, for instance, many times environmentalists and health experts have raised concerns over the manner in which vegetables have been grown in the city.

In his study report ‘Managing Urban Agriculture in Dar es Salaam’, Camillus Sawio, from the Department of Geography of the University of Dar es Salaam besides underlining the importance of urban agriculture, cautions that some health risks are also involved.

According to him, urban agriculture (vegetable growing and livestock keeping) in the city was still rampant in hazardous areas and he cites Mzimbazi River Valley as a classical example.

“Msimbazi River is contaminated with heavy metals. Farmers in the valley irrigate crops with this contaminated water…,” Sawio says in the report.

The report shows a table that indicates the level of pollution of the river’s water with heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, zinc, copper and chromium.

Sawio says that the high quantities of the heavy metals in the river’s water especially lead and cadmium disqualify the water from being used for livestock consumption and irrigation purposes according to the provisions of the Water Utilization (Control and Regulation) Act of 1974.

“However, people continue to use the water for irrigation purposes and thereby aggravate health risks,” he says.

Indeed, many areas along the river’s valley such as Kigogo, Vingunguti, Hannanasifu, Keko, Sinza and Msimbazi vegetable growing is still rampant regardless of the health risks that such kind of agriculture poses to both consumers and the producers themselves.

This means that most of the vegetables (if not all) supplied in the city especially at the city centre and the neighbouring areas originate from the river’s valley.

Now the question is, how much has our health been affected by feeding on such vegetables everyday either at a restaurant during lunch time while at work or at home in the evening?

Sawio’s report emphasizes on the chemical contamination of the vegetables so grown. However, there are other health risks that are associated with vegetables produced in such circumstances.

Much of the waste water used for irrigation is contaminated with human waste that contains a number of diseases-causing germs including those responsible for the spread of water borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid.

It’s important to note that most of the vegetables reaching our tables are always not so much cooked so as not to lose their dietary benefits and hence the tendency has always been half-cooking them.

But this has its cost. Some of the microorganisms responsible for the spread of diseases can still manage to remain alive at such low temperatures and thereby pass on to the people consuming the vegetables.

No wonder cases of cholera outbreak in many areas of the country are commonplace every year mainly during rainy seasons. This doesn’t downplay other factors causing the diseases such as poor sanitation though.

For instance, the World Health Organisation (WHO) in its Tanzania Cholera Outbreak Profile of April this year reveals that between 2002 and 2006, most Tanzanian regions reported cholera cases and nine of the reported more than 2000 cases during the period.

The regions include Dar es Salaam, Dodoma, Kigoma, Lindi, Mbeya, Morogoro, Mtwara, Pwani and Tanga.

Now the challenge is on how to help urban food growers to treat waste water before applying it in their fields so as to prevent the spread of such preventable diseases. Allocation of enough land in safe and clean areas could also help to mitigate the problem.

As IWMI points out-out in its report, urban agriculture is there to stay hence the best option to go about it is to make it safer to the consumers and producers by taking the above alternatives into account.

Livestock breeds extinction threat: How prepared is Tanzania?

The recent announcement by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) that the world is now facing extinction of indigenous livestock breeds is a warning to countries with huge animal populations such as Tanzania.

Actually, the country has the third highest population of livestock in Africa after Sudan and Ethiopia. A report by the Tanzania Investment Centre titled Tanzania Ultimate in Diversity Report 2005/2006 substantiates this by disclosing that in 2002 the country was estimated to have 17.7 million cattle, 12.5 million goats, 3.5 million sheep, 47 million poultry and 8.8 million pigs.

Most probably with the passage of time these numbers might have increased by far today. FAO says that all these livestock breeds are now facing extinction due to a number of factors the leading being the increase in temperature on the Earth`s surface (global warming).

In a report; State of the World?s Animal Genetic Resources (2007), FAO reveals that at least one livestock breed has become extinct every month over the past seven years. According to FAO, this is alarming as it means that the genetic characteristics of the disappeared livestock breed have also been lost forever.

"Around 20 percent of the world`s breeds of cattle, goats, pigs, horses and poultry are currently at risk of extinction," the report, which is the first global assessment of livestock biodiversity and of capacity of countries to manage their animal genetic resources, reads in part adding:

"The options that these resources offer for maintaining and improving animal production will be of enormous significance in the coming decade. Climate change and the emergence of new and virulent livestock diseases highlight the importance of retaining the capacity to adopt our agricultural production systems."

Many breeds at risk have unique characteristics that are useful in confronting these and other challenges in future and traits such as resistance to diseases or adaptation to climatic extremes could prove fundamental to the food security of coming generations, FAO says.

The report was compiled by FAO with additional contributions from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and other international research groups.

"In this situation, the world cannot simply take a business-as-usual and wait-and-see attitude. Wise management of the world's animal genetic resources is of ever greater importance," FAO Assistant Director General, Alexander Muller, said early this week at the report?s inauguration in Interlaken, Switzerland.

Muller also mentioned poorly regulated economic and social changes, increasing reliance on a small number of high-output breeds, animal diseases, poverty, and socio-economic instability areas richest in animal genetic resources as other threats to animal breeds.

He therefore called for an urgent action to improve opportunities, through appropriate policies and technologies, for the better utilization of animal genetic diversity.

"Although animal genetic resources are important for everyone, they are particularly important for many livelihoods in developing countries, often of the very poorest. Governments should assist poor livestock keepers, who are the custodians of a large proportion of animal genetic diversity," said Muller.

Among the livestock breeds that have been mentioned in the report as facing extinction are the famous indigenous Ankole cattle that are found in north-western Tanzania and neighbouring country of Uganda.

The report says that the cattle, which are famous for their graceful and gigantic horns, could disappear in two decades from now, because they are being rapidly supplanted by new exotic (foreign) breeds such as Holstein-Friesians, which produce more milk.

The scientists who compiled the report say that during a recent drought, some farmers who had kept their indigenous herds were able to walk them through long distances in search for water sources while those who had traded the Ankole breeds for imported ones lost their entire livestock.

The researchers surveyed farm animals in 169 countries including Tanzania. The report warns that over-reliance on a few breeds of farm animal species, such as high milk-yielding Holstein-Friesian cows, egg-laying white leghorn chicken, and fast-growing large white pigs, is causing the loss of an average of one livestock breed every month.

It is important to note that about 70 percent of the entire world's remaining unique livestock breeds are found in developing countries such as Tanzania.

"Africa is one of the regions with the richest remaining diversity and is likely to be a hotspot of breed losses in this century," says the ILRI Director General, Carlos Sere.

It is sad to note that despite the dangers posed by the introduction of alien (exotic) species, many smallholder farmers, including those in Tanzania, have abandoned their traditional animals in favour of higher-yielding stocks imported from Europe and the United States.

Sere says that the exotic animal breeds cannot cope with unpredictable fluctuations in the environment or disease outbreaks when introduced into more demanding environments in the developing world and hence loss to farmers.

The above case of the Ankole cattle proves this right. But the question which arises is how prepared Tanzania is in the wake of all these challenging changes? This is because such threats also put the country`s rich in biological diversity into jeopardy.

According to the country's national report on the implementation of the international Convention on the Conservation of Biological Diversity (CCBD), Tanzania is rich in biological diversity due to diverse ecosystems, topography, climate and animal breed varieties.

"The diverse ecosystems, species richness and endemism make Tanzania one of the fourteen biological hot spot countries in the world," the 2001 report, which was prepared by the Division of Environment in the Vice President?s office, says.

The richness in biological diversity also includes a wide range of domesticated animal species. These include cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, rabbits, horses, donkeys and birds, such as chicken, ducks, geese, turkey and guinea fowls.

There are also a lot of domesticated pets such as dogs and cats. As a result the country ranks high in Africa in terms of livestock numbers more than 90 percent of which are the traditional (indigenous) species.

Though information on genetic diversity in the country is still scanty, the available records show that there are varieties of livestock breeds, with cattle having more unique breeds, two of which face extinction i.e. the Chagga and Mpwapwa cattle, says the report.

The FAO report adds the Ankole cattle to the list of the endangered animal species in the country.

It is true that in recognition of the need to conserve and exploit biological resources sustainably, Tanzania has made several efforts to realize this after signing the International Convention on the Conservation of Biological Diversity on June 12, 1992, and ratifying it on March 1, 1996.

However, the continued introduction of exotic animal species in the country leaves a lot of questions as to the future of the indigenous species which are regarded as less productive and slow in terms of growth.

The report by the Vice President's Environment Division also admits that alien animal species such as water buffaloes, camels and others, have recently been introduced in the country.

Cross-breeding is also very common countrywide whereby the indigenous species are cross-bred with the exotic species with the aim of increasing production and disease resistance.

But this interferes with the animal genetic diversity and thus threatens the future of the original indigenous species, something that FAO raises an alarm against as such species could be lost forever.

Yes, Tanzania should modernise her livestock keeping methods but local animal breeds need be improved without introducing the foreign species which could increase production in the short run but eventually fail to adapt to local conditions as it has been the case with the Ankole cattle.

Tanzania should strive to conserve her richness in bio-diversity by preserving genetic resources for both present and future generations.

Lake Natron saga: Can’t development, environmental conservation go together?

THE ongoing debate between the government and conservation organisations over the proposed construction of soda ash plant at Lake Natron is just part of a global debate as to whether development and environmental conservation can go together.

Whereas the government has continued to stick to its guns that it will proceed with the plans to erect the plant because of its benefits to the country, environmentalists, both local and international, oppose the idea on ground that it’s dangerous to the environment.

While winding-up the last parliamentary sessions in Dodoma mid this year, the former Prime Minister, Edward Lowasa, insisted that the government was determined to move on with the plan because even the neighbouring country of Kenya has a similar plant on the other side of the same lake.

“…but, when Tanzania starts discussing the construction of a similar plant in collaboration with Tata, we are told that we’re destroying the environment,” he said in response to the arguments that the project was going to impact to the eco-system around the lake negatively.

Tata Chemicals is the company behind the project and it’s the majority shareholder of the Magadi Soda processing plant on the Kenyan side.

It’s obvious that the government’s stand could be on economic reasons because soda ash is used to produce glass, cosmetics, detergent, paper pulp and other industrial goods of value making the project a good source of revenues to the government through taxes.

Lake Natron , in the Great East African Rift Valley, is known as a soda lake with high concentration of sodium carbonate which is the source of soda ash.

On the other hand, the environmentalists have reiterated that the proposed construction of the soda ash plant is likely to cause much damage to the eco-system of the area whose impact could also be felt globally.

For instance, the Birdlife Africa Partnership (BAP) says that the Lake , which is a very important breeding ground for a certain kind of birds i.e. Lesser Flamingo, a bird already listed in the red list of threatened species by the International Conservation Union (IUCN), is going to be negatively affected by the project.

“ Lake Natron was designated by Birdlife International as an important bird area and a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention (an international treaty on the protection of wetlands),” BAP says in a recent statement made available to the media.

It adds that the area accounts for 75 percent of the world’s Lesser Flamingoes and that it’s the only site the region where the species have been breeding for the past 45 years.

“During breeding flamingoes are sensitive to disturbance hence the proposed development might lead to breeding failure at the site and thereby fast track the species’ extinction,” the statement reads in part.

BAP says that issues of concern over the construction of the soda ash processing plant are many that need to be highlighted before the project is given a go ahead.

The plant, which will initially have a capacity of producing 500,000 tons per year and later on expand to 1 million, is expected to use over 106,000 litres of fresh water per hour, the abstraction of which would be from the already dry area.

The infrastructure that would accompany the plant includes an 11.5 megawatt coal fired thermal power plant, a tarmac road, a railway, a complex network of pipes to transport the brine and accommodation of over 1,200 workers posing a great risk to the area’s eco-system.

“An influx of people and heavy machinery, infrastructure, increased water and air pollution would lead to general environmental degradation and permanent loss of the natural conditions of the land,” BAP points out.

Now which is which? Should the government move on with its plans for the project just for the sake of development at the expense of the environment?

Many nations in the world have found themselves in this dilemma and many a time development endeavours have taken precedence over environmental conservation. But is such kind of development sustainable?

It’s important to note that there is a direct relationship between environment and development and that both aim at one major goal- improve human well-being.

On the one hand, the environment provides natural resources for development process whereas on the other hand, the development process modifies the natural resources and environmental quality to meet human needs.

However, the type of development adopted can cause problems that destroy the environment that sustains it and hence lowers the quality of life which it endeavours to enhance.

For a long time, economic development was viewed as having only one purpose i.e. eradicate poverty and underdevelopment without paying attention to the consequences on the environment.

However, this approach, which was mainly used by the now industrialised countries during their infancy, has resulted in two major sets of problems.

Firstly, the exhaustion of natural resources because during the process of development, renewable resources were consumed faster than the rate at which they were regenerated and non-renewable resources were used faster before substitutes were found.

Secondly, there was large-scale environmental pollution because the pollutants resulting from the process of development were being randomly released at a fast rate into the environment than the Earth’s ability to convert them into a less harmful state.

This state of affairs necessitated joint global efforts for addressing the issue and it was through the Stockholm ’s Human Environment and the Rio de Janeiro ’s Earth summits in early 1970s and 1990s respectively that the idea of sustainable development was born.

Sustainable development can simply be described as a kind of development that caters for the need of the present generation without compromising those of the future generation.

It stands for wise utilization of natural resources by making sure that renewable resources are utilized at a pace and manner that would give room for regeneration and on the other hand, use non-renewable resources in a way that would enable them to serve for a longer period of time.

Since then countries of the world have agreed to make studies (Environmental Impact Assessment or EIA in short) over whichever kind of development project that they come up with so as to check their likely effects to the environment and the respective communities before they are implemented.

EIA is a process of predicting and evaluating the effects of an action or a series of actions on the environment, then using the conclusions as a tool in planning and decision-making.

This evaluation is done before each development project is implemented and once the impact is known in advance, corrective measures can be incorporated into the project, or an alternative project can be proposed.

For most projects, particularly those involving large public investments in areas such as infrastructure and common natural resources, EIA becomes a must and it is always linked to the cost-benefit analysis-the weighing of benefits against the costs or effects.

It is important to note that EIA is aimed at ensuring that there is a balance between development activities and environment.

This has brought about the need for development management whose aim is to sustain the benefits to the present and the future generations and this is only through the wise utilization of natural resources.

The challenge has always been on how to balance between development and environmental sustainability and the situation facing the Tanzanian government at the moment is just one of such cases.

Environmental activists hold that no thorough and objective EIA has been conducted over the proposed project at Lake Natron to clearly reveal the negative effects that the project could cause to the environment and see whether it’s appropriate to allow it.

They also argue that the EIA process itself that the government claims to have conducted was not representative enough.

“The project proponents have not consulted enough with all the interested and affected parties-institutions, communities and individuals,” BAP points out in the statement in relation to the EIA on the project whose report has already been submitted to the National Environmental Management Council (NEMC) for approval.

No one knows why the Tanzanian government, which boasts of its ‘determination’ to environmental protection, does not want to take all these arguments into account despite the fact that some of them hold so much water.

It’s is just last month that the Press Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office, Said Nguba, confirmed that the government’s position had not changed.

He also said that the PM’s office was not aware of any changes to the Environmental Impact Assessment despite the suggestions brought forward by the conservationists and other pressure groups.

If the government and Tata Chemicals, which claims to be a leading company in environmental protection in India, are sure that the project is both good to the economy and to the environment then why don’t they want to include all these views into the EIA?

No body knows why but it’s important to note that Tanzania has not yet reached a point of craving for development at whatever cost. Kenya could have committed a mistake in allowing such a plant on its soil but this is not an excuse.

Two wrongs don’t make it right.

Genetically Modified Foods: A Panacea or Catastrophe in the Making

“GENETIC engineering is like performing heart surgery with a shovel. Scientists do not yet understand living systems enough to perform DNA surgery without creating mutations which could be harmful to the environment and our health.”

So says a recent analysis in the Washington Post newspaper.

According to it, genetic engineering (the science of altering genetic material of living organisms such as animals and plants in order to eliminate undesirable characteristics or produce desirable new ones) is like playing with what nature has set straight.

“Any form of technology that seems to compete with nature always has adverse effects,” it concludes.

The analysis was in reaction to the current global debate over the advantages and disadvantages of genetically modified organisms (GMOs which include foods) that has divided the whole world virtually into two main groups.

One group, which includes even scientists, supports the idea that GMOs have brought about a number of solutions to many food problems that face humanity currently, among other benefits.

Whereas the other (which also uses scientific proofs to support its position) opposes the idea altogether on ground that it is detrimental to human health and the environment generally.

As a result, so much confusion has ensued around the issue and in many countries of the world today including Tanzania, much is still not known about the advantages and disadvantages of GMOs.

It is important to note that GMOs are not quite a new idea in Tanzania and sometime in 2005 the former Minister for Food and Agriculture, Charles Keenja, disclosed that the country was carrying out GMO tests with the aim of verifying their negative effects.

However, much of all this is not known by the Tanzanian public.

Recently, the Director of Environment in the Vice President’s Office, Erick Mugurusi, said that there was a dire need to create awareness among Tanzanians about GMOs together with their potential benefits and threats to the environment, humans etc.

“There is need to create awareness about genetically-modified organisms because biotechnology is rapidly developing with more GMOs being released into the environment causing risks to animal and human health,” he said.

He was speaking during a National Biosafety Framework Implementation Workshop that was held in Bagamoyo.

According to him, establishment of a proper mechanism to create awareness so as to enable the public participate in the implementation of biosafety measures was necessary.

“The level of public awareness on biotechnology and biosafety in Tanzania is extremely low, even amongst the scientific community. Information should be availed to the public on GMOs that have been received or denied authorization into the country,” he pointed out.

Though there is no a clear-cut demarcation as to the truth of each side, a brief highlight of the propositions by each of them could shed some light as to the benefits and negative effects of GMOs and thus enable us to take appropriate measures in time.

But before embarking on that, it is useful to trace the background of biotechnology which is the one that gave birth to GMOs.

The Science Technology Encyclopedia of 2005 defines biotechnology as any technique used to make or modify the products of living organisms in order to improve production and disease resistant in plants or animals.

If appropriately integrated with other technologies, biotechnology can be applied for the sustainable development of agriculture, livestock, fisheries, wildlife and forestry, pharmaceutical and medical industries as well as in the protection of the environment, it adds.

It is worth noting that biotechnology is a branch of science that has been in use for thousands of years, probably since the beginning of civilization.

For instance, even here in Tanzania for many years through indigenous knowledge the best animals or crops were cross-bred so as to get strong products.

So the buffalo-like bulls (which are largely hybrid products) have been cross-bred with the indigenous species to get better results.

As it advanced, biotechnology started dealing with the treatment of ailments and alteration of organisms to better production whose general end result was to improve human life. However, most breakthroughs have been a bit current and one of the them are the GMOs.

There are many examples to prove that the adoption of biotechnology has offered higher yields and better ways of crop and livestock production to farmers.

Genetically improved foods have provided higher nutritional value, better taste and longer conservation all to the benefit of consumers and besides, they have also helped to fight hunger and malnutrition by feeding the ever expanding population of human beings.

For instance, with increased nutritional values scientists have managed to add some characteristics in certain foods such as rice that reduce vitamin ‘A’ deficiency which is the leading cause of blindness and a significant factor in many child deaths.

Scientists have also developed certain types of trees with modified cells which when used to make pulp and paper require less processing with strong chemicals and thus reduce negative impact to the environment.

Increase in yields is another benefit derived from GMOs whereby modification in crops has brought about seeds that could boost production more times than the indigenous (original) species.

Tolerance to poor environmental conditions such as diseases and drought is another advantage of GMOs as scientists have managed to come up with crops with characteristics that are resistant to these bad conditions and thus increase production.

Despite all these success stories, there are still doubts even among the scientific community about the potential threats posed by GMOs to human health and the environment generally.

These technologies are still very new and are shrouded with uncertainties over their safety.

For example, the global environmental watchdog, Greenpeace, says that genetically engineered plants contain genes (units inside cells) from bacteria, insects and viruses, which have never been part of the human diet.

“No information exists about their allergic properties. The allergic potential of such exotic, introduced gene products are uncertain, unpredictable and untestable,” it says in its 2004 report on GMOs.

Many of the genetically engineered crops, which are already grown on a commercial scale, contain genes, which are resistant to antibiotics used for the treatment of diseases in both humans and animals, it adds.

GMO genes can pass on to other members of the same species and perhaps other species. This can be at gene, plant and ecosystem (the relationship between living things and their physical environment that upholds life on Earth) level.

So far, Greenpeace notes, research on this is inconclusive with scientists divided though there is a scientific consensus that once widely released into the environment, GMOs cannot be recalled.

“GMO contamination of traditional varieties of cotton in Greece, canola (rapeseed) in Canada, soy in Italy and papaya in Hawaii has been reported,” Greenpeace discloses in the report adding:

“Traditional crops of the poor are not protected from contamination with GMOs and because all GMO traits are patented (restricted right to make, sell or use a product), implications of the accidental contamination and dissemination should be addressed.”

This means that the original (traditional) varieties are slowly but surely mixed-up and replaced by genetically modified crops and hence pose a possible danger once such human technologies fail at a time when there would be no original seeds to help the recovery of the crop.

For example, local varieties in Latin America permitted the recovery from the catastrophic potato blight in Ireland in the 1840s, the Greenpeace report says.

Again the impact of ‘terminator’ seeds (the seeds that are planted and harvested only once) is also on spotlight.

These seeds though not yet widely commercialized, they would, if applied, prevent a crop from being grown the following year from its own seed.

This is a great blow to poor farmers as they cannot save seeds for planting the next season other than going to buy seeds every new year.

Biotechnology critics also argue that innovations in agricultural biotechnology are profit-driven and not need-driven and that the fact that genetic research is costly the GMO technologies will continue to concentrate in the hands of a few multinational companies.

In an attempt to recoup their initial investment, research institutions patent biotechnology products hence withhold vital information about the innovations and their impact to humans and the environment.

As a result, farmers do fear that they might even have to pay for crop varieties bred from genetic material that originally came from their own fields when they buy seeds from companies holding the respective patents.

According to Greenpeace, Monsanto Corporation of USA is one of the world's largest chemical companies, and by far the most aggressive promoter of genetic engineering in agriculture.

At the moment, the company is responsible for more than 91 percent of all genetically engineered crops in the world.

It spends millions of dollars trying to convince people that the fate of the world's starving masses depended on the acceptance of its new, genetically engineered crop varieties.

It is obvious that biotechnology is like a mixed blessing. Its products have created some amazing possibilities among many such as the feeding of the world’s ever expanding population.

However, reports of the technologies’ potential negative consequences to human health and the environment force people to think twice about biotechnology and GMOs because some of the effects are feared to be irreversible.

Nevertheless, the fact that such technologies could be here to stay makes it necessary for authorities concerned to work hard in identifying their good and bad sides so as to act in time before the situation gets out of hand.

Dilemma of the Poor: Food or Fuel?

“…CONVERSION to ‘biofuels’ such as ethanol is scarcely helping with energy efficiency and is exacerbating a global food crisis.”

This is how a recent report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) explains about the current food crisis in the world.

“The combination of high petroleum prices and the desire to address environmental issues is currently at the forefront of the rapid expansion of the biofuel sector which in turn affects food prices in the world market,” it says in its March 2008 report available on its website.

Around the world, governments have enthusiastically embraced ethanol and other biofuels in recent years. Fuel from plant sources would, the thinking went, greatly reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and, for some countries, would also reduce reliance on foreign oil.

A number of countries in the world such as Brazil are behind the fast growth of biofuel industry and have put in place national policies that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (global warming).

Crops like sugarcane, wheat, maize, rapeseed, soybean, palm oil and other oil crops such as sunflower are used as raw materials in the process, FAO says in its World Food Situation report.

As a result, the boosting demand for agricultural crops used as feedstock in the production of alternative energy sources (e.g. biofuels) has resulted into food crisis whose pinch has already started being felt in many parts of the world.

Skeptics have long warned that ethanol is no miracle cure, offering slight energy gains at best. But in country after country, powerful farm lobbies have encouraged government subsidies for ethanol.

Now, however, the pendulum is swinging strongly in the other direction. For instance, recently the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler claimed that it was a ‘crime against humanity’ to divert corn from food to fuel.

This claim is now more vivid because of skyrocketing food prices and resulting unrest around the world. The enormous investment in biofuels in the U.S., the European Union, Canada and elsewhere, we are coming to see, is fuelling a food crisis in many poor countries.

These changes in food prices have not augured well with people in many countries in the world. In Mexico mass protests against high costs of food and in West Bengal, disputes over food-rationing have also erupted.

In Senegal, Mauritania and other parts of Africa people have been demonstrating in the streets against the increase in grain prices. In Haiti a ruling government was recently toppled following demonstrations against high food prices.

There might still be a major use for ethanol some day, and research should continue to see to it that the efforts to preserve the environment don’t negatively impact on the lives of billions of people across the globe.

A country like Brazil, for example, has made some good progress in using non-food plant material such as sugar-cane waste to produce ethanol. This is a very good initiative that other countries could emulate.

However, because prices are high, vast tracts of rainforest such as within the Amazon Forest are being razed down in the countries around the forest to make way for sugarcane farms.

It’s true that there are no short-cuts to reducing oil use and greenhouse gas emissions. But appropriate precautions must be taken beforehand.

Being part of the global village, Tanzania has not been left behind in promoting biofuels as an alternative source of energy.

Many companies especially from the west have shown interest in growing crops such as starch crops e.g. grains, maize and tubers like cassava, sugar plants such as sugarcane, cellulose plants (agriculture residues), and oil seed crops (like Jatropha, Oil palm)

The government through the Tanzania Investment Centre, with support from other stakeholders, is on the forefront in encouraging such efforts. For instance, it has planned to double sugar cane production between 2005 and 2010 and also to use all molasses resulting from the sugar industry’s projected production and the surplus cane for ethanol, among other initiatives.

Plans are underway to convert millions of hectares of arable land into biofuels and the justification for the promotion of large scale biofuels is that the country’s demand and price for petroleum products are growing rapidly at a rate of more than 30 percent per year.

While this is quite a positive move to the improvement of the country’s economy, it’s important to note that there are socio-economic and environmental prices that will be paid as a consequence.

“There are concerns that using land to grow fuel instead of food, rising grain prices, and the displacement of rural communities will lead to greater food insecurity in Tanzania,” says an environmentalist, Abdallah Mkindi.

In his paper titled ‘The Socio-economic and environmental impacts of a biofuels industry in Tanzania’ that he presented in July last year at a meeting in London, he says that forests, peatlands, mangroves and protected areas will be cut down, burned, and converted to farmland hence canceling any environmental benefit arising from biofuels.

Besides, with the National Biosafety Framework in place which allows trials for genetically modified (GM) crops, the GM industry may intend to use this as an opportunity to promote GM biofuels in Tanzania which could also negatively affect the environment and species therein.

He proposes a critical investigation on the socio-economic as well as the environmental impacts that the introduction of a biofuels industry will have in Tanzania before the idea is wholeheartedly embraced.

Most particularly, the impact on biodiversity, agriculture, food security and sovereignty, livelihoods, markets, land and territory with a specific focus on the impact on smallholder farmers and indigenous communities should be critically investigated, Mkindi suggests.

The following are some of the implications of biofuels production in the country;

Biofuels will increase pressure on Tanzania food supplies and further erode food sovereignty and that fact that Tanzania’s agriculture is predominantly rain-fed, with increased food shortages.

Converting the main sites identified as suitable for growing the biofuel crops will reduce land area devoted for food production so eroding local food security and sovereignty and further cause shortages.

Competition for land is also expected to be the outcome of the initiative because so far several investors have shown interest to invest on biofuels in the country.

According to Tanzania Investment Centre a Swedish company is looking for 400,000hectares of land for sugarcane production and Wami River basin has been identified for the purpose. This means that about a thousand small scale rice farmers could be evicted if the project goes through.

In Ruipa River valley, plans are underway to convert the basin into sugarcane plantation and hence over 1000 small scale rice farmers could be affected.

Promotion of Jatropha in the so called degraded land in Engaruka and Manyara and rice production in Usangu basin is forcing out the pastoralists out of their land.

Biofuels production in the country is also expected to cause conflict over water sources. Areas identified suitable for biofuels production are adjacent to rivers which small scale farmers depend on.

Large scale biofuels production will divert most of the water into their plantation, hence depriving small scale farmers’ access to water.

In Usangu basin, a thousand farmers were evicted and the river which is supplying water to their farms was diverted to an investor’s farm.

These, according to Mkindi, are some of the likely consequences of biofuels production and which he thinks thorough investigation is needed so as to ascertain the good and bad of the initiative to the country, people and the environment before it gets into a full swing.

As we have seen examples from other areas in the world, the rush for biofuels so as to save the environment and also the demand for self sufficiency in terms of fuel supplies by countries has turned into a mixed blessing.

Besides the socio-economic and environmental effects, production of biofuel like ethanol has caused more farmers to switch from food to fuel production. This is also likely to happen in Tanzania and the result will definitely be very detrimental.

Again, ample evidence has proved that though the major end result of the switch to biofuels was the protection of the environment, in the long run biofuels production contributes to environmental degradation in terms of large scale monoculture farming, deforestation, and emission of greenhouse gases during farming and processing.

So, all these should make us thing twice about the initiative. Yes we badly need affordable fuel and at the same time protect our environment but this shouldn’t be out of desperation with little attention to the socio-economic and environmental effects of biofuels production.

This Open Access will Deplete our Fisheries

DESPITE numerous efforts by the government, illegal fishing in our lakes and Indian Ocean coast waters has continued to be rampant and even intensified to the extent of threatening the existence of our fishery resources.

Every other day there are reports about the use of banned fishing methods such as dynamite fishing, poisoning, and use of nets with small holes and other prohibited gears.

Besides, the number of fishing vessels and fishermen, in many if not all water bodies, is increasing by day exerting more pressure on our already over-exploited fishery resources.

These problems are compounded by the fact that there is still no effective mechanism of checking new entrants into fishing business and as a result licensing of more fishing vessels and fishermen than the stocks available has been commonplace.

The Director of Fisheries, Dr. Geofrey Nanyaro, recently admitted that depletion of prawns (along the Tanzania’s coast of the Indian Ocean) was associated with too many fishing companies as compared to available stocks.

“The number of fishing permits issued didn’t correspond with the amount of stocks available in the ocean hence depletion,” he said.

He cited other reasons as unrealistic stock statistics, environmental destruction due to the application of crude methods such as the using of heavy chains and inappropriate nets all of which pose a threat to sustainable utilization of the fishery resources.

Consequently, Dr. Nanyaro said, the government recently had to suspend commercial trawling for prawns until next year to allow multiplication because harvesting level per season dropped from 1, 500 to only 300 tons.

Commercial trawling for prawns (white, giant, tiger, brown and flower) in Tanzania is carried-out in the Coast region mainly in Bagamoyo, Rufiji and Kisiju.

Some trawlers were reportedly using heavy chains so that they sank deeper in the mud where prawns are found.

“When the chains vibrate, both small and big size prawns jump into the net. Such methods destroy breeding grounds,” the Director of Fisheries noted.

According to him, stock assessment survey on prawns will start soon to determine the state of recovery before March next year which is the beginning of the next fishing season.

However, sources from the fishing industry are skeptical over this saying that the recovery period of stocks could take up to ten years because trawlers have over-harvested the fish stocks and destroyed breeding and feeding areas.

Similar cases have also been reported in Lake Victoria which is the second largest fresh water lake in the world and which earns Tanzania billion of shillings every year in terms of export of fish fillets.

Sometime in May this year, President Jakaya Kikwete while in Mwanza expressed his concerns over the increasing acts of over fishing and illegal fishing in Lake Victoria which, according to him, posed a threat to the future of the lake’s fishery resources.

“Over fishing is posing a great threat. Reports show that the number of fishermen has gone up from 51, 935 in 2002 to 98,015 last year,” he revealed.

Fishing vessels operating in the lake have also increased from 15,434 to 29,730 during the period, he added.

He said this shortly after officially inaugurating a new fish-processing plant that is owned by Tanzania Fisheries Development Company Limited (TFDC) a subsidiary of the National Investment Company Limited (NICOL).

“I really wish these findings were wrong. But this is the reality,” said the President, expressing his deepest concern over the future of the lake and its fisheries.

President Kikwete further said that the size of fish being caught was also worrisome, pointing out that of late Nile Perch species coming out of the lake weighs between 2 and five 5 kilogrammes as compared to 15 and 45 kilogrammes some years back. The president said some unscrupulous fishermen still use illegal fishing gear and practices such as poisoning, outlawed nets and dynamites.

“Worse still recent research findings have it that Nile perch catches were down to 375,400 last year from 750,000 tons in 2004,” he said adding:

“This is indeed disappointing.”

He thus directed the Minister for Livestock and Fisheries Development, John Pombe Magufuli, to see to it that strategies for reversing the trend were drawn up and implemented promptly.

I don’t doubt Magufuli’s ability to deal with such problems. It’s only a few months since he was appointed to head the ministry but some success has already started being realized in many parts of the country.

So far Tanzania has made a swift move to restore order in fishing industry which includes the impounding of illegal fishing gears, unseaworthy boats, revocation of fishing licenses and stopping the fishing of endangered fish species.

The massive police dragnet carried out in recent past saw 133 suspected culprits being netted and apprehended in the lakeside town of Mwanza some of whom have already been sentenced to imprisonment.

There is an on-going exercise of cracking down on foreign fishing vessels that are fishing on Tanzanian waters illegally. The operation also involves our Navy as far as border patrol is concerned.

“Neither the government nor the citizens are benefiting from fishing industry in the country. Its better we leave these fishes in water,” said Magufuli as quoted in the media recently adding:
“We have (even) jailed a CCM ward chairman in Musoma for two years and a person from a neighbouring country for eight years for illegal fishing we are not afraid of anyone,” he added.

Early this month Magufuli disclosed that the government decided to cancel licenses held by 69 registered foreign fishing vessels operating in the Indian Ocean as part of efforts to control unregulated fishing in Tanzanian waters and increase revenue in the form of license fees.

However, it’s important to note that the problem is quite bigger for the minister or the ministry alone. Our water bodies are too extensive making it hard to control the number of entrants into the fishing industry.

Tanzania isn’t the only country in the world facing such a problem as over fishing is common all across the world.

It’s an undeniable fact that fishing represents the major contribution to the economies of many countries, both directly as food and indirectly in the production of meal and oil for animal feed.

The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) reveals that the fishery sector contributes more than five percent to GDP in Ghana, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal and Seychelles.

“Fish is also a major source of protein for many poor people. From 1973 to 1990, fisheries supplied some 20 percent of the animal protein intake of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa,” UNEP says in its 2002 State of the Environment and Policy Retrospective report.

According to UNEP, though statistics show the world’s aggregate catch of fish has grown over time, this growth has come to an end mainly due to over-fishing whereby fish are caught faster than they can reproduce.

“In many areas, the world’s oceans have reached their maximum level of production and production may not be sustainable under the present circumstances,” UNEP notes.

UNEP attributes open access to fishing in most fisheries as one of the major causes of depletion of the fishery resources whereby the number of fishermen has more than doubled worldwide.

“In most developing countries, the poor have no choice but to glean the last of the resource,” UNEP explains in the report.

The UN environmental agency says that free and open access encourages over fishing with fishermen tending to catch as much fish as they can without taking care to maintain the fish stock.

It’s worth noting that the essential feature of a renewable resource such as fish (capable of regenerating after harvesting), is that its stock is not fixed and can be increased as decreased depending on the nature of utilization.

In their book ‘Economics of Natural Resources and The Environment’ writers David Pearce and Kerry Turner cautions that there is always a potential of making a renewable resource disappear if utilization is not controlled.

“The potential of over-harvesting a renewable resource is significant: It is quite easy to make a renewable resource disappear. This will obviously happen if the rate of harvest exceeds the rate of natural growth of the resource persistently,” they say.

The writers attribute over-fishing to open access (a situation in which no one owns the resource and access is open to all) but add that other factors such as low operation costs (including taxes by governments) also attract new entrants into the fishing industry.

It’s obvious that there is no any water body that could be said to be without owner. All lakes, oceans and rivers are under territorial borders of countries.

However, poor regulation such as unregulated or easy issuing of licenses (as we have seen in the Tanzanian case earlier on), expansiveness of water bodies and many more such factors render the fishery resources almost open to everyone.

And as an English saying goes-everybody’s property is nobody’s, the common practice has been over-exploitation and abuse of the resources thereby posing a threat of extinction of the fisheries.

Regulation in forms of licenses, taxes and other restrictions are meant to enable countries to avoid such a situation in time before the situation gets out of hand and it’s high time that countries sharing transboundary water resources joined hands to address the problem.

Unrestricted exploitation of resources by everyone with no or poor regulation is more likely to lead to resources’ extinction hence damage the welfare of everyone and imposing an irreversible cost on future generations.

Towards an Agrarian Revolution with a Hand Hoe

“TODAY, the efforts of our farmers are thwarted by a lack of access to good seed, fertilisers, and

financing. Some 95 percent of African agriculture is dependent on rain-fall, and farmers lose an average of 40 percent of their crops after harvest.”

This is how the former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, summarized the challenges that the farmers in the African continent are facing as far as green revolution is concerned.

He made the remarks recently in the US during the launching of an alliance between the US government under its US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra).

The new partnership aims to invest in Africa’s inadequate infrastructure, as well as developing new seeds and fertilisers and Annan, who heads Agra, seized the opportunity to call for green revolution to curb the current food crisis in the continent.

“We need better technologies for efficient use of water; improved market infrastructure; and paved roads so farmers can get their harvest to market,” he said.

This could really be regarded as a great boost to African agriculture which for many years has totally failed to pull out from abject poverty millions of farmers in the continent.

After all, the situation is even worsening everyday with agriculture being reduced into nothing other than a typical guess work forcing the peasants to grow poorer and poorer at the end of each day.

For instance, Annan noted that there had been 30 years of silent hunger in Africa, whereby farmers exported food in the late 1960s but now only produced a quarter of the world average per acre.

Though many factors can be attributed to this trend, poor or lack of investment in the sector has played a big role.

Some African countries can afford buying modern army artilleries and fund endless wars with their neighbours but not simple tractors or even fertilizer for their people.

A country like Ethiopia is always facing acute food shortage but it affords sending its troops in Somalia for years now.

Other countries have also paid little attention to the sector despite it being their economies’ mainstay.

In many countries spending in military and national security areas has always been much more than the agricultural sector which employs more than 80 percent of the general population in the continent.

It’s only last week that some members of parliament questioned our government’s seriousness in improving agriculture in the country during discussions over the 2008/9 budget estimates for the Ministry of Livestock Development and Fisheries.

They said that the Tshs. 41 billion budget for the 2008/9 financial year was ‘too little’ to lay any comprehensive plans to modernize the agricultural sector and fishing industry that employ over 80 percent of Tanzanians.

Last year the ministry was allocated Tshs. 49 billion more than this year’s Tshs. 41 billion forcing the MPs to doubt the government’s commitment and seriousness towards the sectors.

The MPs also urged the government to establish a special fund to be used to empower graduates from agricultural and fisheries’ institutes to take the lead in revolutionalising the sectors.

“Let’s give our youth a challenge. Through this strategy we shall change and improve the economy of our people,” said Kingunge Ngombale-Mwiru.

According to him, agriculture is second most important sector after education in bringing about sound economic change and improving people’s lives.

“It gives us food. It employs 80 percent of our people and it’s the source of raw materials for our industries. But still it’s the sector that seems to be neglected,” the legislator pointed out.

Though the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Cooperatives has been allocated Tshs. 460 billion this financial year from Tshs. 379 billion in the previous year (an increase of 21 percent) much is still to be desired for the sector to improve.

For many years agriculture in Tanzania has been suffocated by poor investment forcing the farmers to continue relying on crude tools such as hand hoes which todate limit their ability to produce.

This is despite the fact that Tanzania is ranked third next to Sudan and Ethiopia in terms of livestock population in the whole of Africa, having about 40 million animals that could be used in boosting our agriculture.

The country which is also richly endowed with water bodies still relies on rain fed agriculture for over 90 percent.

Recently the Minister for Water and Irrigation, Prof. Mark Mwandosya told the parliament that out of the 29.4 million hectares suitable for irrigation farming, it’s only 289,245 hectares that are under that kind of farming so far.

No wonder food shortages in some parts of the country have remained to be commonplace and grains like rice, wheat and items like sugar are still being imported from abroad.

Sometime last year our Agriculture, Food and Cooperatives Minister, Stephen Wasira, was quoted in the media as saying that Tanzania needed to embark on agricultural revolution so as to do away with bottlenecks of non-productivity in varieties of crops.

But what kind of an agrarian revolution can we embark on in such circumstances?

Tanzanian agriculture is still mainly subsistence farming and is characterized by low level of technology use and poor management leading to low crop yields. Small scale farming, which is dominant in the country, has totally failed to fully utilize the large land resource available.

The 2001 Agricultural Sector Development Strategy says that out of the 44 million hectares classified as suitable for agriculture, only 10.1 million hectares or just 23 percent is under cultivation.

This means that much of arable land in the country is still lying idle.

A report by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security titled Agricultural Mechanisation in Tanzania of 2005 acknowledges that improvement in the agricultural sector is paramount in poverty reduction.

“Commercialising smallholder agriculture and accelerating its growth rate is essential in increasing agricultural production as a means of pulling the majority of the rural poor out of abject poverty,” it says.

The report, which was prepared by one R. M. Shetto of the ministry’s Irrigation and Technical Services Division, adds that given the generally abundant land resource, efforts to increase agricultural production should include both technologies to expand utilized land area and intensification of the existing cultivated areas.

“This may be achieved through mechanisation and adoption of other improved technologies such as improved seed, use of fertilizers, agro-processing and accessibility to markets,” it further adds.

It explains that agricultural mechanisation includes three main power sources i.e. human, animal and mechanical.

“Under the tropical heat, a healthy adult using a hand hoe can work about 0.5 hectare per season thus limiting the area under cultivation to 2 hectares only for an average family of four adults,” the report reads in part adding:

“On the other hand, a family owning a pair of draught animals can manage 5-8 hectares per season while a 60-70 horse power tractor can manage more than 80 hectares in a season.”

Thus, it says, mechanisation enhances human capacity, leading to intensification and increased productivity as a result of timely planting, weeding, harvesting, post harvesting handling and accessibility to markets.

It therefore has the potential to turn idle land into productive land for national economic growth, food self-sufficiency, industrial growth and employment, leading to poverty reduction.

“Tanzania needs to mount a long-term effort to develop a modern agriculture, mechanisation playing a leading role,” it concludes.

It’s true that the cost of mechanical mechanisation could be far above the reach of many Tanzanians but if Tanzania begins at least by adding the number of animals used in agriculture this could greatly boost our agriculture.

Animals could relieve farmers in Africa of a big burden in carrying out their agricultural activities
According to the report, there are over 14 million hand hoes in use (by March 2005) and the number of oxen and animal drawn ploughs is approximately 1.2 million and 570,000 respectively out of the 40 million animal population.

This means there is still a great potential of adding this simple and affordable technology to many farmers in the country and thereby increase their agricultural productivity.

A country like China, which faced severe food shortages in 1960s and 1970s, came out of the predicament through the proper use of such simple and affordable technologies such as the use of water buffaloes.

Today the country, whose total arable land is only 14 percent of its total size, manages to feed its 1.2 billion people and also exports food to other parts of the world.

Again, heavy investment could be made possible though government subsidies and formation of strong farmers’ cooperatives or SACCOs that would enable farmers purchase things like tractors.

For instance, the report says that there were only about 9,500 tractors that were operational countrywide in 2005 and another 6000 were broken down although repairable.

“On the average the number of ploughs has been increasing at an average of 20,000 units per year while 200 to 300 are imported annually. The country needs more than 3000 animal drawn ploughs and 1800 tractors annually in order to cater for farm power needs in agricultural growth,” the report discloses.

The sad story is that over the past 20 years, tractor sales in the country have drastically dropped from 1,143 tractors in 1985 to 274 in 2002, according to the report, mainly because of high prices.

Lack of credits, stringent borrowing conditions from commercial banks and low crop prices make tractors unaffordable to many of our farmers.

The report continues to tell the sad story. While the price of a 70 horse power tractor with plough, harrow and trailer was sold at Tshs. 460,000/- in 1984, it is over Tshs. 35,000,000/- now.

On the other hand the price of many crops has not changed much over the years and in many cases the prices have declined in real terms taking into consideration the massive devaluation of the Tanzanian shilling and inflation.

For instance in 1985, a kilo of maize was Tshs. 5.41/- (equivalent of USD 0.318) whereas it's now sold at Tshs. 120.00 per kilo now (2005) which is equivalent to USD 0.113.

“While in 1985 a farmer could purchase a 70 Horsepower tractor with implements by selling 870 bags (of 100kgs) of maize, now he has to part with 3,000 bags to acquire the same tractor,” the report explains.

Now how do we expect a country to undergo green revolution under such circumstances in which farmers can only afford hand hoes?