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?