EDITORIAL: LET’S DO MORE TO ASSIST SMALLHOLDER FARMERS
While the importance of agriculture cannot be overstated, the majority of smallholder farmers in Tanzania have essentially marked time in the six decades the country has been independent.
Smallholders, who comprise over 70 per cent of those depending on rain-fed agriculture for their livelihood, have largely been unable to take charge of their own economic interests and lift themselves out of poverty – with a helping hand from the government, of course.
This is hardly surprising. The 2003 Maputo Declaration, to which Tanzania is a party, requires governments to set aside at least ten percent of their budgets for agriculture. For nearly two decades, though, that grand dream has come to nought across most of the continent.
While the government’s Budget has more than doubled over the past decade from Sh15.1 trillion in the 2012/13 financial year to Sh36.68 trillion currently, there has not been a proportional increase in annual budgets for agriculture. For instance, at Sh294 billion, the 2021/22 agriculture allocation is a miniscule 0.8 percent of the government’s entire budget for the next financial year, which Parliament passed yesterday.
Clearly, there is no political commitment to investing in modernising the way smallholder farmers work so they can produce more. Policy makers must bear in mind that most of the problems smallholder farmers are grappling with reflect the chronic issues that affect the national economy.
They include higher import components in the foreign trade than exports, a high unemployment rate, poor infrastructure, low productivity and poor quality of social services. At this rate, it will be an uphill struggle to bridge income inequality.
Large-scale farmers should not benefit from state support at the expense of smallholder farmers. We need to create interdependence between them if we are to enjoy rapid economic transformation from a backward agrarian economy to a robust industrial economy.
LET’S ALL BE WARY OF FAKES
It is disturbing that some dishonest traders have no qualms about selling substandard or outright counterfeit products to unsuspecting customers. They do so safe in the knowledge that they will get away with it.
The harsh reality is that the majority of consumers often do not know how to tell products fit for human consumption and those that are not. Substandard products pose a major health risk to the majority of Tanzanians, particularly since they have no way of identifying the culprits.
We have to join forces if we are to end this menace. The authorities should ensure laws and policies are implemented to the letter.
They should conduct consumer education campaigns to alert the people to the impact of fake products on public health and the national economy.
We can help the campaign along by refusing to buy shoddy products, which are often sold cheap. Let us expose dishonest traders, importers and manufacturers. In doing so, we will not only take these dangerous goods off the market, but also protect our wellbeing.
