Following concerns from stakeholders on how a cereal boom could be achieved and sustained the following are suggestions on what should be done;

Funding of the cereal boom
What is needed is for the government to mobilize initial capital or “seed money” to kick start the programmes. In future the programme could generate enough cash to run itself. The seed money could be derived from the money currently being used to support the supply side of the system such subsidy and development projects/programmes, which are worth billions of shillings.

The government is planning to spend about Sh3 trillion in agriculture in the coming seven years in the subsidy and agriculture development despite failure of these projects. Where will this money come from? Where does the money to finance politics come from? In the real world, money is not a problem; the problem is lack of good business idea.  

How overstocking should be handled
The grains should be released periodically in the domestic and foreign markets. Food shortage is and endemic problem in the Sub Saharan region. Tanzania could be become a granary of grain for the region. For example Kenya, this year, has requested to buy 160,000 tonnes of maize, but Tanzania strained itself and offered only 4,000 tonnes! Deficit of rice in Africa is 7 million tonnes. South Africa alone imports 800,000 tonnes of rice every year.

We can plan to feed the region. World Food Programme (WFP) and UNHCR could buy most of the grain surpluses from Tanzania. In a long run entrepreneurs would establish small scale and medium scale industries to process grain for animal and human consumption. 

The role of the government and the private sector in the cereal boom
The programme will be operated in a public-private partnership approach. Some traders will be part of the four-way deal value chain involving farmers, businesses, government and civic society organisations.

Those who cannot make it in the grain value chain can get involved in other trade activities supplying services to the grain sector - other food stuffs, working gears, transport, and communication. Also linking farmers to markets in crops other than grain will be going on.  The programme should also be run in a public-private partnership manner. Stakeholders could identify all sources of inefficiency and see how the private sector could fill the gap for the sake of efficiency.

Development of other crops
The current government role of creating enabling environment in agriculture should continue in issues such as development road infrastructure, promotion of cooperatives, etc. NGOs could continue developing supply chains to link producers to buyers.

For traditional export crops private buyers are already taking the lead. The booming grain sector will require support from other crops - tomatoes, cabbages, beans, spinach, etc that could be provided by those that can’t grow maize.

The economic prosperity of US and Canada is associated with the grain sector; the prosperity of Finland is associated with its forests. Price support is being applied in many Asian countries such as China, Thailand, and Malaysia.

For 47 years Tanzania has been aspiring to eradicate poverty through improving its agrarian sector. Billions of money have been and are being spent on the sector but the situation of poverty continues to worsen. In the countries where green revolution started it took only 15-20 years to transform their agricultural sectors.

It’s therefore imperative to ask ourselves; why is Green Revolution taking too long to achieve in Tanzania? What haven’t we done right? Is our institutional framework pro agricultural development? Do stakeholders correctly perceive the underlying problems facing the agricultural sector in the country? And, what is the way forward?

This presentation, has demonstrated that that under good management using a grain sector boom approach, it is possible for agriculture to lead the economic development process of the country. But to conceptualise the idea behind this approach a pragmatic way of thinking is paramount.

Dr Gabagambi teaches at Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro. This is a continuation a series of articles on agriculture in Tanzania.

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