Remove obstacles to commercial farming

15 March 2010, The Citizen
URL: http://thecitizen.co.tz/editorial-analysis/19-editorial-comments/650-remove-obstacles-to-commercial-farming.html

Dar es Salaam:  Experts have singled out Tanzania as one of the countries with the poorest agricultural incentives in the world. According to a recent survey, our country is ranked third from last, after Zimbabwe and Zambia.

This revelation, which emerged in a presentation at a workshop on ‘Prospects of Agricultural Growth in a Changing World’ by World Bank consultant Hans Binswanger, should be a wake-up call to the government and other stakeholders.

The South African expert lists among the obstacles to commercial agriculture a ban on exports of food crops, poor rural infrastructure and escalating prices of farm inputs.

While some may be skeptical about such ratings, the grim fact is that our agriculture is still stuck at the crude subsistence level nearly five decades after Independence. In fact, commercial farming remains a dream, despite years of beautiful agricultural slogans.

Findings such as Prof Binswanger’s should be food for thought for the policymakers, especially coming at a time when the government is trying to rekindle interest in this crucial sector with its recently launched Kilimo Kwanza (Agriculture First) strategy.   

However, the news that over a million tonnes of food crops in Rukwa region may rot on farms as a result of the government’s export ban, makes a mockery of this new Kilimo initiative.

While the decision may have been based on the need to boost food security, an equally vital factor has been ignored. This is the naked reality that with the poor infrastructure in Rukwa, it’s virtually cut off from local markets. And Prof Binswanger may be justified in finding the ban on exports illogical.

Lifting the export ban and dealing with other disincentives is a sure means to get farmers to increase crop production and have young people gainfully engaged. Unless this happens, they will continue to regard agriculture as something for the old people and failures to deal in, instead of the potential profitably enterprise it actually is.
 
For efforts such as Kilimo Kwanza to succeed, every effort must be made to uproot these disincentives and enhance farming.

* Editorial perspective in The Citizen, Tanzania