OPINION: Farming, youth & social media-II

Last week this column ran under the same title but we feel we would not have done justice to the subject matter, without delving into the above, in a part two, so here goes.

The uproar caused by the title of my paper, Sexing up Agriculture to stir youth interest at the annual Nkwabi Ngwanakilala Investigative Business Journalism conference, was just the half of it.

On the other hand, Mwananchi Communications Ltd which publishes this newspaper among others, during its now regular Thought Leadership Forum, came up with series to discuss how Tanzania can harness the potential of its agriculture, for the benefit of the nation. The reality is staring us tight up in our faces.

That young people are shunning agriculture has very reason to do with our failure to do more than talk Kilimo Kwanza-Agriculture First.

On paper it has always felt good and the numbers pretend to back it up, but we have yet to meet the 10 per cent annual budgetary investment in Agriculture and thus, we have yet to mechanize in such a way that would make agricultural sense.

Truth be told, the hoe is back breaking, unattractive and cannot make us feed the nation and export.

You will argue until the cock crows that we have always relied on the hoe. But that is a fool’s errand. Our population has more than shot up and there is now more than 7b of us in the world needing food.

Our Tanzanian population will hit 80m in 50 years. We clearly cannot afford to hoe it away to feed the nation.

In a paper published in the Journal of Agriculture Economics, researchers Aliyu Barau and Islam Afad argue that social media has changed the way we research, read, write but more significantly present significant gains that can be used for agriculture extension services.

If social media already is in use in research, I see no reason why we have failed to link social media, our agriculture with the policy and research teams with our youth and therefore, be an agricultural boon.

Take Ansaf for example.The Agriculture Non-State Actors forum not only brings non-state actors together but significantly brings to the fore excellent informed research from potential, soil use, inputs through to markets.

This minefield of information could be, if back by a serious investment in Agriculture be a turning point in how our social media world (there are 3 bn social media users around the world), to a standstill with agriculture information.

As I write this Ansaf Executive Director Mr Audax Rukonge is tweeting and I quote,” there are many successful cases-productivity in agriculture transformation. One of the challenges is (who) and how to scale them up.

This is basically about resolve and budgetary commitment (my emphasis). Tanzania can leverage on increasing economies and growing populations in the region (EAC&SADC) as motivators for more investment in agriculture.

Journalist Naki Mendoza writing in Devex says, “Just as information disseminated through social networks has made it easier to decide which flat to rent or movie to watch, rural agriculture stands to gain from a culture of crowdsourcing.

If a core pillar of social networks is the sharing of best practices and practical experience to better inform a community’s decision-making, rural agriculture and smallholder farming certainly have no shortage of information to contribute.

The life of a farmer relies on an array of inputs and variables, from harvesting techniques to pest control and buyers willing to pay premium prices for crops.

Having reliable, crowdsourced information on those, and a number of other factors, could dramatically change the way farmers go about their business.

I have just visited Kisena village in rural Lindi. It has no power, no factories, no dams nothing but small farms. Their potential is in the land. Can they be made to benefit from the only asset they have at hand?

It is good to see that the government, development partners, the private sector and other stakeholders jointly developed and adopted long-term multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder frameworks to guide investments in agriculture, food security and nutrition. Effective coordination and integrated implementation are key.