Green Revolution in Tanzania

This year's message on the just started Farmer Agricultural Shows "NANE NANE" reads " Green Revolution will liberate our people". The message by our standards is timely since over 90 percent of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihood. The message is also timely in the sense that Tanzania has an immense potential for the agricultural sector to stimulate and support the growth of processing industries and also boost trade.

Reading on the paper the statement sounds good, but what brings about Green Revolution is the main challenge. In recent years we have seen concerted efforts to try to lure foreign investment in the agricultural sector as a means of improving food production. Certainly not,according to Hamilton, the then Director of Population and Human Resources department of the World Bank, Improved productivity requires not only Capital investment but also a workforce with the flexibility to acquire new skills, and this is determined by the level of competence of the country's skilled workers and technicians. These are responsible for enhanced quality and efficiency in product development.

In a country like Tanzania, although there might be a urge in translating the above message, the means to achieve the said Green revolution will take some time, at the moment it is in no way near. Turning the Country green with field of quality crops need the presence of trained water experts in the field of irrigation and related discipline, we also need crop and livestock experts, we need good infrastructure we also need social scientists and supporting disciplines like economics. When these are in place we need to support our expert with resources to execute their duties and turn their ideas into reality and lastly we need to provide appropriate policies and conducive environment for our experts to work.

Such policies and good infrastructure will attract investment from both within and outside the country. The signs of good intention in effort to bring the green revolution will be reflected in the budget allocate to Agriculture and support Ministries, we would also an increase in the number of scholarships for our scientists to acquire new knowledge abroad, we would see politician working closely with our experts and making use of their advices, we would see consultative workshops dominated by scientists and their ideas acted upon.

We would see concerted efforts to improve farmers access to credit institution and assisted to acquire credits. This can not come over night, we need to plan we need to have a clear vision of what we want to be 10 year to come (like, MDGs, or vision 2025). We also need to spell out how do we reach where we want to be, we need to identify the resources (trained people, good policies and better infrastructure of all types). This is when we can think of a proper green revolution other wise it will remain a dream- A big dream on paper at least for now

Tanzania and the MDGs - are we prepared?

Millennium development goals – are we real prepared?


Have you read the document on our country strategy to achieve the MDGs?. If you have I think you will agree with me that it is one of the best documents – a comprehensive one, in terms of where we want to go and what we need. This document I guest was prepared by people who had time and resources to sit down and think then put ideas on paper.

Recalling Mwalimu J.K.Nyerere’s argument, development becomes a reality when the following conditions are in place, - good leadership, people and land – the expansion of this leads into going further to qualify good leaderships into commitment of our leaders; people are educated to attract investment especially for high value technologies that requires skills and land as the first national valuable asset.

For a country like Tanzania, achieving the millennium development goals requires investment in human resource development through training in skills to match up current technological development. One could think current mass enrolment of students for high education is a step forward, but looking at the global economy and the level of technological advancement expected in few years to come, it is obvious that we in no way near towards achieving the MDGs. We will continue to talk of food crisis amid potential for surplus production, we will continue waving tax on food imports at the expense of hurting local production we will continue to register factories for light technologies that does not require skilled labour such as juice packing that will not contribute to our export earnings for the much needed foreign exchange. In short we will never boost our export with by factories dealing with packaging of water and other soft drinks. Nor shall we se investors seek to train our people in management skills are it is not needed to distribute water to stockists.

While the year 2025 is not far from today it is unlikely that we have started the journey into the right direction. What do we need then?, I just formulated the debate and I would like to invite you to contribute your ideas so that we can collectively team up to save our country in efforts to be part of the people we think of as per our country’s vision 2025