TADB SCHEME TO EMPOWER WOMEN, YOUTH LAUDABLE

The Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB) has come up with a financing scheme tailored to empower women and the youth.
This is good news for the two groups, which together comprise  50 percent of the workforce in Tanzania where agriculture is regarded as the backbone of the economy.
Nearly 80 percent of the country’s population is directly or indirectly engaged in agriculture. However, despite forming a big part of the workforce, Finscope data shows that these active groups are financially excluded.
Needless to say, the majority of the youth are disillusioned with farming as a livelihood because of unpredictable returns from significant investment.
However, the inclusion agenda championed by the bank is seemingly the best way of getting all financially excluded groups into sustainable and more productive farming.
The scheme entails collaboration between TADB and market facilitators to provide market information, training and capacity development to the groups.
This promises a new dawn for millions of youth and women who hardly access finance from lenders. There is hope that many Tanzanians will now embrace agriculture to generate income and at the same time ensure food security.
It is difficult indeed to make agriculture attractive to the youth, especially graduates, most of who dream of securing formal employment.
 In that regard, it calls for thorough education for all before embarking on this ambitious scheme.
If nothing else, we expect these groups will go back to farming with passion. It may also help discourage the mind-set of migrating to urban areas in search of greener pastures.
To give credit where it is due, TADB is doing a good job to uplift farmers, especially in projects it has partnered with the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania.
Hopefully, nobody will be locked out when the envisaged financing product kicks off.

TREAD CAREFULLY ON BIOFUELS

Biofuels are steadily growing in importance, but the inherent conflict over the use of food crops for fuel calls for a serious discourse. The question is whether the continued expansion of biofuel production would not worsen delicate food situations in some areas.

This calls for clarity on the policy and legal framework to meet the challenges. Growing interest in biofuels should not compromise food crop production in the sense of land initially meant for food crops being taken up by biofuel crops.

The expansion of crop production for fuel could also upset the social order by fuelling the displacement of rural populations from ancestral land and stoking social tensions. The impact of rapid growth on the environment includes deforestation and other forms of land degradation.

With the potential entry of large-scale foreign investors, communities living in agricultural areas face eviction to create room for biofuels farming. To mitigate these negative consequences, the government should come up with apt laws that regulate investment and resolve conflicts arising from the industry.