Biofuel production should be carefully regulated

LAST week the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Food Security and Cooperatives, Paniel Lyimo, said that the government was in the final touches of coming up with a policy document to guide biofuel production in the country.

He said that his ministry together with the Ministry of Energy and Minerals were jointly preparing the policy so as to make sure that biofuel production does not cause food insecurity in the country.

The ministry is carefully making follow-up on the types of crops to be grown for the purpose so as to make sure that food production in the country is not negatively affected together with land use.

He was of opinion that production of biofuel should first begin by using leftovers from food and animals such as those produced after the making of sugar (from sugarcane) and sisal ropes and related products (from sisal).

The PS remarks came at a time when there is an ongoing debate in the country and the world in general over the likely implications of biofuel production to food production and land use patterns.

Some sections have associated the current food shortage in the world with biofuel production holding that many of the crops used as raw materials were actually food for human beings.

For instance, a report by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) concluded that conversion to biofuels such as ethanol is scarcely helping with energy efficiency and is exacerbating a global food crisis.

“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 that cause 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.

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.

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 through 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.

A policy document could help us control the production biofuels in the country and thereby save the country from such likely negative effects.

Corruption in Water Sector kills Millions

THE taking over by City Water Company of the supply of water in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) in 2003 was regarded by many as a sigh of relief after decades of neglect and underinvestment in the city’s water infrastructure.

This was actually expected to be a turning point as far as reliable water supply was concerned in a city where fewer than a hundred thousand households out of the population of about four million have access to running water.

City Water consortium, which was part of the British Water Supply Company-Biwater, entered into a contract with the Dar es Salaam Water and Sewage Authority (Dawasa) whereby the latter was to continue owning the infrastructure, while the former would operate the system.

The company was tasked to collect revenue from customers, make new connections, and conduct routine maintenance during the ten-year contract, and it had a six-year tax holiday.

However, it took less than two years for all these expectations to go down the drain. Not only was the company unable to meet revenue collection targets agreed in the contract, which were crucial to attain if it was to make a profit, the company was collecting less money than its state-run predecessor (Dawasa). Besides, city dwellers started seeing their water bills rising!

City Water’s defense was that its bid was based on flawed information supplied by Dawasa and stopped paying its monthly fee for leasing Dawasa’s piping and other infrastructure from July 2004, less than a year after the entering into the contract. It also insisted that its operating fee be raised.

But all these complaints were rejected by auditors from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the British engineering consultants-Howard Humphreys and several reports by World Bank and other development partners admitted that City Water had failed its duty.

These failures left the Tanzanian government with no other option other than just terminating the contract on May 13, 2005 the decision which led to legal battles that have been settled in favour of the government.

It’s still unexplainable how did such a company manage to win the contract despite its inexperience in handling such deals.

Writing for The Guardian newspaper (UK) Xan Rice, who closely followed the tendering exercise, raised concerns over Biwater’s experience in undertaking such assignments.

In an article tilted ‘Water Margin’ which was published on August 16, 2007, the Guardian’s East

Africa correspondent said that it’s true that Biwater had really made its name and helped earn its founder Adrian White his fortune during Margaret Thatcher’s (former British Premier) push for privatisation in Britain.

However, he had reservations. “Within the industry the company had a decent reputation for building and running water treatment plants, but had never taken charge of such a huge management operation before,” Rice said.

Despite the flaws in the execution of the contract, Rice wonders as to why did the World Bank’s quality assurance in Washington award the project a ‘highly satisfactory’ ranking-the top score.

“Biwater said later in a statement to the Guardian (UK) that the World Bank approved (City Water’s) bid after an exhaustive financial and technical assessment process lasting several months and also rejected any notion of gaps in its experience,” he said in the article.

The writer also raised some issues of concern over the manner in which the deal, which was competed by three firms (two from France, City Water and a Tanzanian investor-Superdoll), was concluded.

“When the French companies declined to submit a final tender, Biwater’s consortium won the day,” Rice said and quoted a British water consultant, who followed the bid process, as saying that City Water submitted its bid at a rock-bottom price.

“Even if it performed well, making money would be a huge challenge. It was in the crap from day one,” the consultant is quoted to have said.

Rice wondered why the World Bank and International Monetary Fund still thought that the arrangement was the best way forward for the water supply problem in Dar es Salaam.

Actually, they had long made the privatisation of Dawasa’s assets a condition for Tanzania receiving massive debt relief including a USD 143.5m loan package for upgrading the city’s water infrastructure.

No one knows what transpired behind the curtains though possibilities of corruption and undue influence cannot be over ruled in such a scenario.

Try to imagine the fate of millions of people in the city who spend everyday of their lives without reliable supply of safe water as such ‘funny’ games are being played on and on.

It’s worth-noting that the four million plus Dar es Salaam residents’ number is just a fraction of the total number of people going without reliable supply of safe and quality water globally due to similar dubious contracts and poor water governance.

Worldwide the water sector has been tainted by corruption and other forms of mismanagement both of which deny access to safe water to billions of lives.

The 2008 Global Corruption Report by Transparency International (TI) argues that the crisis of water is a crisis of water governance, with corruption as one root cause.

“Corruption in water sector is widespread and makes water undrinkable, inaccessible and unaffordable,” TI says.

The report, which was recently launched in Stockholm Sweden during the World Water Week, demonstrates that corruption is a cause and catalyst for the global water crisis, which is likely to be further exacerbated by climate change.

“Corruption in the water sector puts the lives and livelihoods of billions of people at risk.

Corruption affects all aspects of the water sector, from water resources management to drinking water services, irrigation and hydropower,” the global anti-corruption watchdog says.

According to TI, the onset of climate change and the increasing stress on water supply around the world make the fight against corruption in water more urgent than ever.

In her foreword to the report, the world renowned environmental activist, Prof. Wangari Maathai concluded that the global water crisis is nothing else other than a man-made crisis of governance with ignorance, greed and corruption at its core.

“But the worst of all is corruption. Corruption means power unbound. It gives the powerful the means to work against and around the rules that communities set themselves. This makes corruption in water particularly pernicious,” she says.

This is because, she adds, corruption allows the powerful to break the rules that preserve habitats and ecosystems, to plunder and pollute water resources that entire world regions depend upon and to steal the money that is meant to get water to the poor.
While noting that the problem is global in reach, Prof. Maathai admits that Africa is the hardest hit.

“Nowhere are the global water crises and the havoc that corruption inflicts on the sector more shockingly on display than in Africa,” she admits while suggesting a global approach was a prerequisite for tackling corruption in water sector worldwide.

As the TI report notes, the human consequences of the water crisis, exacerbated by corruption, are devastating and affect the poor and women most of all.

“In developing countries, about eighty percent of health problems can be linked back to inadequate water and sanitation, claiming lives of nearly 1.8 million children every year and leading to the loss of an estimated 443 million school days for the children who suffer from water related ailments,” the report reveals.

TI concludes by calling for increased advocacy to stop corruption in water so as to avoid the imminent high costs to economic and human development, the destruction of vital ecosystems, and the fuelling of social tension or even conflict over this essential resource.

As the 2000 UN Millennium Report pointed-out no single measure would do more to reduce disease and save lives in developing countries than bringing safe water and adequate sanitation.

Hence, there is a dire need of collectively fighting against corruption in the water sector short of which we’ll continue witnessing the loss of all these lives yet the solution is absolutely within our reach.

Of Mount Kilimanjaro Ice Waving Us Good-bye Due to Deforesation

THE recent scientific theory linking the loss of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro to increased deforestation on the mountain’s foothills is more than sad news as far as the welfare of the mountain’s biodiversity is concerned.

The theory is highlighted in a recent study report compiled by two researchers from Britain’s Portsmouth University -Nicholas Pepin and Martin Schaefer, who took eleven days to survey the mountain’s glaciers.

The researchers, who revealed their findings at a news conference in Dar es Salaam recently, said the mountain’s glacier surface had shrunk from 20 kilometres in 1880 to two kilometres in 2000.

They said the development was caused more by local than regional factors, with Pepin suggesting that deforestation mainly due to extensive farming as the major cause.

“Deforestation of the mountain’s foothills is the most likely culprit because without forests there is too much evaporation of humidity into outer space. The result is that moisture-laden winds blowing across those forests have become drier and drier,” he explained.

This revelation is another reminder of the catastrophic effects that deforestation can cause to the environment.

Try to imagine the fate of the whole range of biodiversity that depend on flow of water resulting from the normal melting of the mountain’s ice such as forests, animals (both wild and domesticated) and other living organisms.

The mountain is known to be surrounded with huge tracts of land covered by forests which accommodate millions of different forms of life from wild animals in game parks to human beings.

I happen to have grown-up in Moshi, a town that is found right on the slopes of the mountain. It’s sad to notice that many of the rivers that we used to swim in, and whose tributaries originate from the mountain, are now full of exposed rocks with very little water flowing down the stream.

As Pepin revealed, the major factors behind the wanton deforestation is the clearance of forests to give room for farm lands though other factors such as expansion of human settlements into forest lands and industrial activities also have a share in the problem.

This problem facing Mount Kilimanjaro and its rich biodiversity is not unique to Tanzania as many other countries especially the developing ones are also confronted by a similar trend.

Though in this case the melting of ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro is disassociated with global warming, it’s important to note that deforestation has a substantial share in the rise of temperature on the Earth’s surface, among other environmental problems.

This is because every tree that is cut down besides being a loss to biodiversity, also contributes to global warming.

Trees are scientifically known to be capable of absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (carbon sinks) and thus check global warming that way.

For instance, writer Bryan Walsh in his contribution to a feature article titled The Global Warming Survival Guide that came out in the TIME magazine early last year, while quoting a number of scientific findings says that a tree can absorb up to a ton of carbon dioxide over its life time.

So he suggests that planting trees most especially in the tropics as the best way for mitigating global warming and climate change.

However, the sad story is that many parts of the world still experience wanton cutting down of trees for various purposes such as clearance of new lands for agriculture, urbanisation, energy supplies, and construction, among many others.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says that deforestation and forest fires that are commonplace in many developing countries of Africa, Latin America and Southern Asia greatly contribute to global warming together with other environmental negative effects.

In fact between 25 and 30 percent of the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere each year (1.6 billion tones) is caused by deforestation, FAO says.

“We are working to solve two of the key environmental issues; deforestation and global warming at the same time,” FAO Senior Forestry Officer, Dieter Schoene, told a meeting on deforestation and global warming in Rome early last year that was attended by about 200 development experts mainly from developing countries.

The meeting was organized by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and hosted by FAO.

Delegates of the 46 developing countries present at the workshop signaled their readiness to act on deforestation, 80 percent of which is due to increased farmland to feed growing populations. In Africa, for example, shifting cultivation is still a common practice that also involves the use of fire to clear new lands for agriculture.

Part of the solution is to increase agricultural productivity so that there is less demand to convert forests into farmlands. But they also stressed that they needed financial help from the developed world to do the job.

According to FAO, developing nations, alongside the developed ones, have to play a key role in curbing deforestation as one of the ways of fighting against deforestation.

Schoene says that trees are about 50 percent made of carbon and that when they are felled or burned, the carbon dioxide they store escapes back into the air where they create a layer on the atmosphere that blocks heat from escaping into space causing rise in temperature on the earth’s surface.

According to FAO figures, some 13 million hectares of forests worldwide are lost every year, almost entirely in the tropics where deforestation remains to be very high.

While officially launching the FAO’s State of the World’s Forests Report 2007 last year, David Harcharik, FAO Deputy Director-General said though there were some places in the world which recorded positive changes in terms of forest management, the problem remained big in developing countries.

“…countries that are facing the most serious challenges in achieving sustainable forest management are those with the highest rates of poverty and civil conflict,” he said.Global forest cover amounts to just under four billion hectares, covering about 30 percent of the world’s land area and from 1990 to 2005, the world lost three percent of its total forest area, according to FAO data in the report.

For instance, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean are shown in the report as currently being the two regions with the highest losses. Africa, which accounts for about 16 percent of the total global forest area, lost over 9 percent of its forests between 1990 and 2005.

Latin America and the Caribbean, with over 47 percent of the world’s forests saw an increase in the annual net loss between 2000 and 2005, from 0.46 percent to 0.51 percent.

Coming to Tanzania, between 1990 and 2000, the country lost an average of 412,300 hectares of forest per year, which is an average of annual deforestation rate of 0.99 percent. The country’s forest cover stands at 39.9 percent of the total land area, which is equivalent to 35,257,000 hectares.

This means that solutions for curbing deforestation must originate from within the developing countries before looking outside for support.

So developing countries such as Tanzania should now work hard in preserving forest resources and at the same time educate her people about the importance of protecting forests. Besides, people should be encouraged to plant more trees.

On the other hand, wealthy nations could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally by paying landowners in developing nations not to clear forested land for agriculture under the existing environmental instruments such as the Kyoto Protocol.

This proves that the fight against deforestation should have a global approach instead of just leaving the burden on the poor countries whose communities are always compelled to destroy the environment to cater for short term needs.

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.