Expert: Africa can feed the world

Dar es Salaam. Africa has what it takes to feed the world if the continent can fully exploit its agricultural potential, experts say.

Africa, according to Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (Sagcot) chief executive officer, Geoffrey Kirenga, spends at least $30 billion on importation of food.

Mr Kirenga said it was a disgrace for a continent with such vast arable land to spend lots of money to import food from abroad.

He made this remark during the fourth Mwananchi Thought Leadership Forum (MTLF) whose theme was ‘Agriculture Our Lifeline.’

The forum was organised by Mwananchi Communications Limited (MCL) in collaboration with ITV/Radio One.

“About 60 per cent of African land is still uncultivated, with 50 per cent of it found in Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique,” he noted. Specifically, according to him, Tanzania is also capable to feed the continent if the potential available in the Southern Highlands, Lake Zones, northern and the Coast areas where virtually everything can be grown will be fully utilised.

Despite agriculture being considered the backbone of the country’s economy, Mr Kirenga disclosed that Tanzania was producing only 25 per cent of its agricultural potential because of poor technology, unpredictable policies and shortage of funds.

Mr Kirenga exuded confidence that, should Tanzania manage to take full advantage of the remaining percentage, it has the capacity of guaranteeing food security besides feeding the entire continent.

“If our farmers use the right seeds, fertilisers and embrace modern farming methods, they can triple their harvests. For farmers who harvest two tonnes of maize per year, it is possible for them to produce between seven and 11 tonnes per hectare annually,” he said.

According to him, the same can happen to potato farmers where one producing eight tonnes per hectare can raise production to between 20 and 40 tonnes.

He opined that the country needs good seed policies to improve provision of better seeds to farmers, noting that climate-smart agriculture requiring addition of manure and plants remains to the land was crucial.

Officiating the forum, the minister for Agriculture, Mr Japhet Hasunga admitted that despite deliberate initiatives to reinforce the sector, its contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was still wanting.

He said in 2017 the sector’s contribution to GDP stood at 28.7 per cent, but more than 65.5 per cent of Tanzanians directly depended on it for their survival.

Challenges

Mr Hasunga challenged stakeholders to brainstorm solutions to the problems, which have been impeding growth of the sector despite being blessed with vast arable land.

Responding to the minister, agriculture stakeholders levelled blame on the current unpredictability of policies, multi-regulatory bodies, unfriendly taxation system, poor lending to farmers and poor storage facilities for stagnating the sector.

The Agriculture Non-State Actors Forum (Ansaf) managing director, Mr Audax Rukonge, pointed out that unpredictable policies and unfriendly tax environment were the major challenges affecting investment in the sector.

Citing the dairy industry, Mr Rukonge said one needs to register with up to at least 26 institutions to do an investment to the subsector.

He also cited examples of irrigation projects which needed urgent change of policies to save the money that has already been directed to irrigation projects.

“Unpredictability of policies affect investment. For instance, changes in policies after investors have injected lots of money in the projects has caused them massive losses,” he said.

Regarding extension services, he said agricultural experts are not enough to meet the demand, which requires a ratio of one village one extension officer.

According to him, post-harvest loss is another challenge that hinder the growth of the sector since at least 35 to 40 per cent of cereals are lost annually and 60 per cent of fruits and vegetables damaged.

Financing agriculture

Stakeholders say both public and private financing of agriculture is still wanting.

For commercial banks, for instance, only eight out of 100 loans offered are for agriculture, a single factor that has made all other interventions to revamp the sector ineffective.

Also, the government has never allocated 10 per cent of its annual total budget to the sector as it was agreed during the 2003 Maputo Agreement.

Managing director of Tanzania Agriculture Development Bank (TADB) Japheth Justine admitted that the situation is still challenging and putting off some investors.

According to him, only Sh1 trillion was offered by the commercial banks as loans to the agricultural sector in 2017.

A policy advisor to ASPIRES, an organisation dealing with promotion of agriculture, Mr David Nyange, also added that only 6.7 per cent of loans issued in the 2017/18 financial year went to the agriculture.

The Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) also shows that from 1997 to 2017 only 5.6 per cent of investment were for in agriculture. The number, however, jumped to eight per cent last year.

Apart from little insufficient money being injected into agriculture, the time for repayment of loans provided by commercial banks is also too short for farmers and investors to afford, according to him, adding it is difficult for an investor in the agricultural sector to repay the loan within five to six years. “We (TADB) plan to increase loans to the agriculture sector to at least 15 per cent, making commercial banks offer at least Sh4 trillion per year. We plan to engage the banks and set a standard amount for agriculture,” Mr Justine said.

The same idea worked and bore fruit in India where they commanded all banks to direct 15 per cent of the amount of loans they offer to agriculture.

TADB has so far disbursed more than Sh102 billion to farmers and other investors in the farming industry.

“Sh80 billion has been set aside for small-scale farmers and we are committed to dishing out half of the amount while commercial banks will disburse the rest,” noted Mr Justine.

The NMB Bank has so far issued some Sh450 billion to finance farmers in the past four years, according to the bank’s senior manager for agribusiness, Mr Carol Nyangaro.

He said over 300 small and medium scale farmers cooperative societies, agricultural inputs processors and traders are on the list of beneficiaries.

Resolutions

Since independence in 1961, the government has been coming up with various national declarations to revamp agriculture and fuel its growth, like Siasa ni Kilimo, Kiswahili for Politics and Agriculture, Kilimo Kwanza (Agriculture First) and Mpango Kabambe (Ambitious Programme).

Mr Obey Assery, the director of policy and planning in the ministry of Agriculture also revealed that the government has so far scrapped 105 charges on agricultural products to attract more investors in the sector.

However, stakeholders still called for consistence of policies and change of some laws, regulations, taxation system and strategies if Tanzania is to take the sector to the next level.

Agricultural Council of Tanzania (ACT) executive director Timoth Mmbaga has called for massive investments on storage facilities.

“We don’t have enough cold-storage facilities for horticultural products,” he said, calling on the private sector to invest in the area.

Mr Hasunga said his ministry was in a process of constructing storage facilities under the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) that will see more than 501,000 tonnes of agricultural products stored.

“If the facilities are well constructed, the country’s food security will be guaranteed even if weather vagaries hit it,” he said.

He added that his ministry is now reviewing the Agricultural Policy of 2013 to see if it is timely, fitting and solving currently constraints.

For her part, Dr Anna Temu, an economist, researcher and advisor at the University of Sokoine (Sua), called for assured markets, massive investments in technology and access to improved seeds and fertilisers.

Moreover, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (Fao) said that Tanzania needs to transform the sector by amplifying political commitment, increase public investment levels, increase public financing and encourage more partners to invest in it.

Fao’s representative in Tanzania, Mr Fred Kafeero, said the country is part of the broader global community and, therefore, it is obliged to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (2030), the African Union’s Agenda 2063 (The Africa we Want), Africa’s commitment to end hunger by 2025, and the 2014 Malabo Declaration.