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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
