Kilimo Kwanza

Tuesday 1 June, 2010

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IIss aa WWhhiittee RReevvoolluuttiioonn iinntthhee GGrreeeenn oonnee ppoossssiibbllee??

The Guardian KILIMO KWANZA

MILK WEEK

Tuesday 1 June, 2010

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The Guardian KILIMO KWANZA Tuesday 1 June, 2010

2 EDITORIAL/PERSPECTIVE

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Agroforestry for healthy

Students at Nturumeti Pri-mary School are growingwatermelons alongside tim-ber and fruit trees as partof the Healthy Learningprogramme aimed at im-proving teaching, learningand nutrition, according toa report by the WorldAgroforestry Centre inNairobi

The not-so-white aspects ofcotton revival programmeCONSIDERABLE brain-storming has been going onboth in the country and atvarious multilateral institu-tions or centres in relationto the problem of what todo about the cotton sub-sector, in Tanzania as well asAfrica generally.

Huge investment could halt falling fish stocksand breath new life in marine based industryInvesting around $8 billiona year in rebuilding andgreening the world's fish-eries could raise catches to112 million tonnes annuallywhile triggering benefits toindustry, consumers andthe global economy to-talling $1.7 trillion over thenext 40 years.

Can Tanzania Achieve a White Revolution within the Green?Do Tanzanians realise theimportance of milk? Yes,they do. That is why theyare consuming increasingamounts of it every year. Infact every year Tanzania isregistering an increase of9.5 percent in consumptionof milk...imports!

RETIRED third-phase presidentBenjamin Mkapa will recall havingonce nostalgically remarked thattime had come for Tanzania to stealfrom the Arusha Declaration byaiming more resolutely for self-de-velopment and, by extension, self-reliance.

He said the world economic climate was undergo-ing drastic changes, donor fatigue had set in and thedonor countries were preoccupied more with their owninternal problems and “it’s dawning upon us that real-ly we must drop the bucket where we are and developby our own bootstraps”.

It is 15 long years since that renewed contempla-tion of the virtues of the 1967 “blueprint for Tanzania’ssocialist path” of dear memory that placed a premiumon the use of locally available resources to realise so-cial and economic development in dignity.

Any tangible evidence that the declaration’s revo-lutionary spirit has continued to catch on and that thecombination of the country’s own human, natural, fi-nancial and other resources has helped move the na-tion up the ladder of meaningful development?

The answer to the question would lie somewherebetween Yes and No, depending on the particular sec-tor, sub-sector or activity one has in mind.

If the subject of reference is the livestock sector ingeneral and the dairy industry in particular, which isthe main topic in this issue of our Kilimo Kwanza sup-plement, the sad fact is that Tanzania is still long dis-tances from the goals it has set for itself.

The third-phase presidency publicly declared thatit would set out to make land as asset in terms invest-ment opportunities that would transform livestockinto a reliable source of real and recognisable annualincome just as the use of land for cash crops were forthe peasantry.

It regretted the irony that Tanzania was supposedto be the third or fourth country in Africa in terms ofthe size of its national herd of livestock but remainedwithout a livestock and diary industry worth writinghome about.

Any noticeable improvement since?Unfortunately, not much, if the findings in the leadpiece in this supplement is anything to go by.

For instance, we are told that Tanzanians havebeen consuming so much milk that they import theitem from 37 foreign countries. But there is a contra-diction here: a whole two million litres of locally pro-duced fresh milk – or half the amount available in thecountry – is, meanwhile, destroyed every passing dayjust because it cannot reach consumers within thecountry before it goes bad!

It is especially saddening that there are a number

of less endowed countries where the livestock industryhas witnessed such a boom that it has long resulted –or could soon result – in what is now commonly re-ferred to as a “White Revolution” born to the GreenRevolution.

A distraught entrepreneur who qualifies as one ofthe most quotable investors in Tanzania’s livestocksector says he sees no reason for the country not to be-come a giant in the dairy industry.

He boasts vast experience in the industry and thusknows his onions so well that when he cites lack of in-vestment as one of the major factors hindering the sec-tor from blooming, there is every reason for the nationto stop and listen – and then take appropriate action.

Milk is by nature highly perishable, its qualitysubject to all manner of factors. The least mishandlingcan see it go bad and even turn toxic. That’s how vul-nerable the precious liquid is – and, hence, the need tochange it into a form that is stable enough to last.

Fortunately, Tanzania is no stranger to modern-day milk processing. As long ago as the 1960s thecountry boasted a relatively technologically advanceddairy industry, complete with factories churning outhuge quantities of milk and other dairy products suchas butter for both export and consumption within thecountry.

Items like “long-life” Mara Milk competed on equalfooting with imported substitutes such as the (KCC)Kenya Creameries Company brands that had been inthe market much longer.

Whatever befell these super class items of ours ishistory. But we ought to pick up the fragments of thisproud history and piece them together; they surelyhold crucial lessons about how we could move onagain, this time with the benefit of hindsight andtherefore with greater hope for success.

It is not too late to reverse the tide, particularlywith Kilimo Kwanza having the development of thedairy industry so much close to its heart. It can bedone - if Tanzanians in their millions throw their fullweight behind efforts to turn the country into a placereally flowing with milk and honey – both provenhealth boosters and income earners.

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Wallace MauggoEditor

Dairy industry criesout for urgent help

Artwork & Design: KN Mayunga To have your organisation promoted in Kilimo Kwanza, Call: 0787 571308, 0655 571308 0754 571308

By Guardian Writer

Development of the dairysector could be themost effective vehiclefor significantly trans-forming the poverty-stricken ruralTanzania, through im-proved household nu-

trition security and enhanced incomes.Contributing to the discourse of this

year’s Milk Week, the registrar of the DiaryBoard Mr Charles M.D. Mutagwaba said ina statement however, that the country’sdairy industry is still uncoordinated, poorlyorganised and producing far below capacity.

This year’s National Milk PromotionWeek’s theme of ‘Je! Umekunywa MaziwaLeo? Fuga Ngombe wa Maziwa’ (Did YouDrink Milk Today? Keep a Dairy Cow) willtake long to resonate with the public be-cause milk is very expensive to drink andkeeping a cow in the circumstances is moreeasily said than done.

For in spite of the country having thethird highest cattle population on the conti-nent (coming after Ethiopia and Sudan)milk production is very low and the capaci-ty to protect it just for several hours toreach the market is almost non-existent,several decades after independence.

The Government has been putting a lotof emphasis on dairy development in thecountry since the mid 70s. Dairy develop-ment policies and strategies have beenchanging in accordance with the overalleconomic policies of the 1st, 2nd and 3rdphase governments.

During the mid seventies, the govern-ment established a number of parastatals,namely the Dairy Farming Company (DAF-CO), Tanzania Dairies Ltd. (TDL) andHeifer Breeding units (HBUs) that operat-ed under a holding company, the LivestockDevelopment authority (LIDA) mainlythrough IDA-World Bank loan and theEuropean Economic Community(EEC)/World Food Programme (WFP) foodcommodity aid.

Following liberalization of the economyduring the 2nd phase government (1985-1995), these parastatal organizations weredissolved and all the seven dairy processingplants under TDL and some farms previ-ously run by DAFCO have been privatized.Since the mid 80’s the government policyhas put a lot of emphasis on development ofthe dairy industry through empoweringsmallholder farmers.

This policy has been supported by anumber of donor funded projects in Tangaand Kagera (Dutch Government, 1976-2005), the Southern highlands regions ofMbeya and Iringa (Swiss government sup-port 1976 – 2004), the Heifer ProjectInternational (various regions),FAO/UNDP (Kilimanjaro), the Irish gov-ernment (Morogoro and Zanzibar) theAustroproject Association (Dar es Salaam,Coast, Mwanza and Mara Regions – 1993-2006) and Land ’O Lakes (Dar es salaamand Arusha /Kilimanjaro) and Farm AfricaDairy goat projects in Babati District.

The combined efforts of governmentand development partners cited above re-sulted in expansion of the improved dairyherd from 143,000 in 1984 to 385,119 in2002 kept on 129, 010 smallholder farms.

Current government estimates are 500,000improved dairy cattle (both smallholder +commercial farms). They produce about30% of the estimated 1.15 billion litres ofmilk per annum. More than 70% comesfrom estimated 16.4 million indigenous cat-tle kept by about 1.6 million households.

Various studies show that dairying con-tributes significantly to household nutritionsecurity and incomes and is a potential ve-

hicle for rural poverty eradication underthe country’s’ MKUKUTA strategy.

In spite of these gains, the dairy indus-try is still constrained by a number of prob-lems. It is uncoordinated and poorly organ-ized; productivity is low (about 1,700-1800litres per annum/cow); only about 20 mil-lion litres of milk out of approximately 300million litres of locally produced milk mar-keted off-farm is processed by local indus-

tries; it is overburdened by multiple and/orhigh taxation on processed milk products;milk imports are increasing thereby de-pressing market access of locally producedmilk and per capita consumption is onlyabout 40 litres per annum compared with200 litres recommended by FAO or 100litres per capita in neighbouring Kenya. Inorder to address these constraints dairy in-dustry stakeholders have undertaken a

number of activities including:

Stakeholder organizationsSupported by the Dutch government

supported Tanga Dairy DevelopmentProgramme (TDDP), the first regional dairystakeholder apex organization, the TangaDairy Co-operative Union was establishedin Tanga in 1995 out of nine primary DairyCo-operative Societies. The Coastal DairyFarmers Association (CODAFA) was estab-lished in 1995 by individual willing farmersof Dar es Salaam and its peri-urban hinter-land. With support Smallholder dairySupport programme (SDSP) of the lastphase of the Dutch government support tothe Tanzania dairy industry two nationalstakeholder institutions, the Tanzania MilkProducers Association (TAMPRODA) andthe Tanzania Milk processors Association(TAMPA) have been established during2004. National Milk Traders Associationhas been registered in February 2010.

Tanzania Dairy Board Following a resolution of the meeting of

the 2nd National Dairy DevelopmentConference, NDDC held at AICC in Arushain 1998, to establish a National DairyDevelopment Board to regulate and co-ordi-nate the development of the dairy industry,the Tanzania Parliament passed a bill es-tablishing the Tanzania Dairy Board whichbecame legally effective in July 2004. TheBoard is answerable to the Minister and tothe Annual Council of the Board whichdraws its membership from stakeholder or-ganization of each district of TanzaniaMainland.

The Board has 4 statutory meetings peryear while the Annual Council has to meetat least once a year. In 2007 the ministry oflivestock Development and Fisheries for-mulated and approved the regulation whichwill enforced together with the DairyIndustry Act, 2004.

The TDB’s mandate is to promote andregulates the dairy industry in Tanzaniamainland. It promotes production, collec-tion, processing, marketing and consump-tion of milk and dairy products by facilitat-ing stakeholders activities. The main func-tions of the board are regulation of dairy in-dustry activities, development of dairy in-dustry, promotion, advocacy, and coordina-tion of dairy stakeholders.

Milk campaignsThe first milk consumption promotion

was organized in June 1997 by the CoastalDairy Farmers Association (CODAFA) fol-lowing a regional meeting for Eastern andCentral African countries that was support-ed by Land O’ Lakes in Dar es Salaam.Since then this has been an annual eventcelebrated during the first week of June.The need to promote milk as a healthy andnutritious food is felt in many countriesthroughout the World. Each country in theworld strives to become self sufficient inmilk production and consumption.Following requests from member countries,the FAO of the United Nations, has since2001 declared June 1st of every year to becelebrated as WORLD MILK DAY.

Most countries celebrate it in differentways, conducting milk rallies, distributionof milk to school children, orphans etc, me-dia campaigns and political speeches.

Tanzania dairy industryholds keyto rural prosperity

HHEEAADD OOFFFFIICCEE:: IIRRIINNGGAA, P.O. Box 562, Tel: 026 2725200, Fax: 026 2725006, Email: [email protected] BRANCH: DAR ES SALAAM: P.O. Box 7215, Tel: 2865967, Fax: 022 2861849, Email: [email protected], Website: www.asasgrouptz.com

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A Tanzanian woman who hasdecided to part with povertyby keeping a few cows

The Guardian KILIMO KWANZA

MILK WEEK

Tuesday 1 June, 2010

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The Guardian KILIMO KWANZA Tuesday 1 June, 2010

4 MILK WEEK

Can Tanzania Achieve a WhiteRevolution within the Green?

By Special Correspondent

Do Tanzanians realisethe importance ofmilk? Yes, they do.That is why they areconsuming increasingamounts of it everyyear. In fact every yearTanzania is registering

an increase of 9.5 percent in consumption ofmilk... imports! So thirsty are Tanzaniansfor milk that they import it from 37 differ-ent foreign countries. But in addition,Tanzania wastes nearly two million litres offresh milk everyday across the country be-cause it cannot be transported safely and intime to the consumers who need it withinthe country.

There are many reasons why Tanzaniashould take its dairy industry very serious-ly. One of them, according to the CEO ofTan Dairies, Mr Devangwa Mmari, is thatit is the quickest proven way to eliminatemass poverty in the rural areas, where ma-jority of the population is found.

“Rural poverty is mostly perpetrated bylack of money circulation which locks themajority of our people out of the monetarysystem,” Mmari told Kilimo Kwanza lastweek. “And there is evidence that countriesthat have promoted their diary industryhave managed to get most of their peopleout of poverty because of the link estab-lished between the (rural) milk producerand the (urban) market that creates a dailycash flow between the two.

Mmari says if a peasant home has atleast one cow, it starts earning a daily in-come from mainly feeding the cow on cropresidues, and start getting out of the abjectpoverty of people who live on less that onedollar a day. For example, India, which hasover a billion people but took its ‘white rev-olution’ seriously, now only has 3.3% of itsliving under one dollar. Next door Kenyahas 22.8 % of its people still under that ab-ject category while in Tanzania, more thanhalf of our people (57.8%) are still underthere. But the situation in Nigeria with allits oil wealth stands at a miserable 70.8% ofthe Nigerians still living below the povertyline.

But does is the situation in Tanzaniafavourable for the improvement of the dairysector? According to Mmari, Tanzania isthe best placed country in Africa to developa successful dairy industry. The countryhas the third largest number of cattle onthe continent, numbering about 19 million.It is only third after Ethiopia and Sudan.

So what happens to all the milk that isproduced by so the many cows in the coun-try? A about half is consumed by the farm-ers and their neighbours. Not more thanhalf gets to the market because there isvery limited capacity to protect it andtransport it to the market before it deterio-rates. So about two million litres a day arewasted like that around the country.Instead, 70% of the milk consumed byTanzanians is then imported from some 37different countries, because it can reach ourshops in preserved form, while the milkproduced in Tanzania cannot reach the con-sumers in the country.

Asked why he does not consume milkfrom the local cows but prefers to buy for-eign milk from the supermarket, an ordi-nary Dar es Salaam resident, Mr JesseMayunga laughs and says he has no inten-tion of putting his three-year-old son’s lifeat risk.

“I tried to buy milk from a local suppli-er who has some cows,” he recalls. “But thequality was unreliable, different every daydie to contamination and adulteration. Soit is imported formulas for my babies andNIDO for the rest of us adults.”

The perishability of milk makes the de-velopment of the sector virtually impossiblewithout careful, substantial investment.Without basic processing which starts withcooling, milk is no good a day or less after

collection from the cow. So lack of invest-ment is seen as one of the biggest obstaclesto the development if the industry inTanzania.

So what are the chances the sector thathas a high potential with a huge domesticmarket taking off? Very high, say Mmari.Even at the present poor quality breed lev-els, a small livestock keeper with ten cowscan produce litres of milk per day. At theworst possible price of shs300 a litre, he canearn shs15,000 or ten dollars in addition tocatering for the nutritional needs of his

family.

Tanzania’s diary opportunities:With already 19 million heads of cattle

available, The ‘start’ is not difficult as thelivestock farmers already know how to lookafter the animals. The country already hasa modern breeding centre at Arusha. Thismeans that cross breeding with millions ofthe local cows can take place to producemillions of high-yielding cross breeds andautomatically increase milk production by 4times per cow. Moreover, the cross breeds

grow much faster, have more body weightand are also resistant to many diseases liketheir indigenous mothers.

Besides the natural resources like land,water and fertile soils, Tanzania has a greatreservoir of modern scientific agriculturaland animal husbandry knowledge. Besidesseveral agricultural training institutions,The sokoine University of Agriculture hasin the past few decades produced hundredsof Phds, thousands of Masters and numer-ous Bachelors graduates in differentbranches of agriculture.

On the occasion of this year’s Milk Week, the TanzaniaMilk Processors Association has made its suggestions forfirmly entrenching the Dairy agenda into the ten pillarsof Kilimo Kwanza as follows:1 Demonstrate Political will to push our agricultural

transformation. We would like to see a clear short action-able promising message in the Dairy sector transformationfrom the president.

2 Enhanced financing for agriculture. Specify and addmore budget to cover Dairy Development Programs in the Na-tional Dairy Board, Strategic Small holder dairy Procuders ca-pacity building, School Milk Feeding Programs

3 Institutional reorganization and management of agri-culture. Tanzania Dairy Board needs major transformationinto Dairy Development Board which should cater for sectoraldevelopment requirements with a clear road map and how toimplement the activities being given in order of priority.

4 Paradigm shift to strategic agricultural production.Dairy Sub-sector needs a value chain approach paradigm shift!From farm-to-table initiative need to be implemented effec-tively

5 Land availability for agriculture. A proper mapping onwhere cattle should feed, areas to erect milk collection centers,processing areas in every strategic milk producing area.

6 Incentives to stimulate investments in agriculture. Ac-commodative taxation to stimulate investment into dairy sec-tor. Use money collected from the imports of dairy products todevelop the sector.

7 Industrialization for agricultural transformation.Strong dairy cooperatives with dairy hubs to cater for all serv-ices including linking them to processing industries for bettertransformation.

8 Science, technology and human resources to supportagricultural transformation. The Proposed/allocated 1%of GDP to agriculture research and development should por-tion wise be divided into all strategic sector research like ani-mal breeding, agro-processing innovations, market linkagesystems.

9 Infrastructure development to support agriculturaltransformation. Milk need to be cooled and transported ordirected to value addition centers Collection centers are thekey to this transformation as they will certain assure farmersgood price as well as attractive business from processor interms of volume collection.

10 Mobilization of Tanzanians to support and participatein the implementation of KILIMO KWANZA. Shouldstart by mobilizing government to buy Tanzanian made prod-ucts especially milk for schools and other institutions.

Producers givetips to entrenchdairy into KilimoKwanza pillars

Investing around $8 billion a year in re-building and greening the world's fisheriescould raise catches to 112 million tonnes an-nually while triggering benefits to industry,consumers and the global economy totalling$1.7 trillion over the next 40 years, The UNEnvironmental Programme information of-fice reported recently.

These are among the findings of a new,landmark report being compiled by theUnited Nations Environment Programme(UNEP) and economists entitled the GreenEconomy- part of which was previewed re-cently in New York.

The investment, some of which can becovered by phasing down or phasing outsome of the $27 billion-worth of fishing sub-sides currently in place, is needed to dra-matically reduce the excess capacity of theworld's fishing fleets while supportingworkers in alternative livelihoods.

Funding is also required to reform andre-focus fisheries management, includingthrough policies such as tradable quotasand the establishment of Marine ProtectedAreas, in order to allow depleted stocks torecover and grow.

Such measures, backed up by bold andforward-looking investments, would notonly generate important economic and envi-ronmental returns.

They would also assist in fightingpoverty by securing a primary source of pro-tein for close to one billion people.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary

General and UNEP Executive Director,said: "Fisheries across the world are beingplundered, or exploited at unsustainablerates. It is a failure of management of whatwill prove to be monumental proportionsunless addressed."

"The lives and livelihoods of over half abillion people, linked with the health of thisindustry, will depend on the tough but alsotransformational choices Governmentsmake now and over the years to come," headded.

"The Green Economy preview report of-fers a way of maximizing the economic, so-cial and environmental returns from re-building, reforming and sustaining fisheriesfor current and future generations.

The scenarios recognize that millions offishers will need support in retraining andthat fishing fleets must shrink.

But this needs to be set against a rise incatches, an overall climb in incomes forcoastal communities and companies, im-provements in the health of the marine en-vironment and ultimately hundreds of mil-lions of people whose incomes and liveli-hoods are linked to fishing," he added.

The final Green Economy report, whichwill cover 11 sectors from agriculture andwaste to cities and tourism, will be pub-lished in late 2010.

This preview, launched during themeeting of the Preparatory Committee forthe Rio+20 meeting in Brazil in 2012, coversmarine fisheries, water and transport.

As part of a redoubled ef-fort to stave off futurefood crises by bringingAfrica's rice productionin line with its rapidlygrowing consumption,scientists have an-nounced a paradigm

shift in rice research for the region, whichwill give elite status to genetically diverseindigenous varieties, The UNEnvironmental Programme information of-fice reported last week.

Long considered a poor cousin of theAsian rice grown around the world, Africanrice will be the focus of a major scientificinitiative to break the yield ceiling in farm-ers' fields.

New findings reported by the Benin-based Africa Rice Center, which is support-ed by the Consultative Group onInternational Agricultural Research(CGIAR), counter the widely held view thatAfrican rice, preferred by local consumersfor its taste, is inherently lower yieldingthan Asian rice. They also confirm its re-markable adaptability to harsh growingconditions in Africa and hence its value fordeveloping improved varieties suited to achanging climate.

Rice consumption in Africa is growingfaster than that of any other major staple.In West Africa alone, it expanded at an an-

nual rate of 4.5 percent from 1961 to 2006,making rice the sub-region's single mostimportant source of dietary energy; it is thethird most important for sub-SaharanAfrica as a whole. But production duringthat same period grew more slowly, creat-ing a gap between rice supply and demand.This has saddled African governments withhuge import bills, estimated at US$3.6 bil-lion in 2008.

African rice -- known scientifically asOryza glaberrima -- was domesticatedabout 3,500 years ago in West Africa, whereit thrived for centuries. But today it isgrown only in scattered pockets, near thebrink of extinction. Most African rice farm-ers have abandoned their native varietiesfor high-yielding Asian rice (O. sativa),which was introduced to the continentthrough European trade with Asia viaAfrica about 450 years ago.

"African rice was initially ignored bymainstream research," said Dr. KoichiFutakuchi, an ecophysiologist atAfricaRice. "Later, when scientists realizedthat it had valuable characteristics, theybegan using it as a source for desirabletraits to improve the higher yielding Asianrice. But now for the first time, we're re-versing the gene flow, extracting desirabletraits from the Asian rice and transferringthem into the African rice."

In the 1990s, AfricaRice researchers

crossed the two rice species with the aim ofdeveloping varieties that combine theadaptability of O. glaberrima to local grow-ing conditions with the high yields of O.sativa. The result was New Rice for Africa,or NERICA. More than 80 NERICA vari-eties have been developed for rainfed envi-ronments, adopted by farmers in about 20African countries and the demand for NER-ICA seed is very high across the region.

The hardiness of O. glaberrima resultsfrom its strong ability to compete withweeds and to withstand rice pests and dis-eases, fluctuations in water depth, infertile

soils (including toxic levels of iron), severeweather and even human neglect. For ex-ample a single variety like CG14, whichwas the O.glaberrima parent of the firstgroup of NERICA varieties, is resistant tomultiple constraints. "This makes it highlydesirable for poor farmers.

But, since such resistance is controlledby many genes, it will be difficult to trans-fer them fully to O. sativa." said Dr.Futakuchi.

AfricaRice has recently embarked on anambitious program to improve O. glaberri-ma, which will offer farmers varieties that

are well armed against Africa's multipleconstraints and have acceptable yield po-tential in rainfed environments. A majorobjective of the new research is to overcometwo main drawbacks that account for lowyields of O. glaberrima: lodging (a tendencyfor plants to fall over when the grain is ripe)and shattering (shedding of ripe grain atcrop maturity).

"African rice generally yields betterthan Asian rice under harsh conditions,where pests and other stresses are intense.But if the problems of grain shattering andlodging were overcome, it could also give aquite acceptable yield of 5-6 tonnes perhectare in more favorable, rainfed lowlandenvironments," Dr. Futakuchi said. Tomake the African rice more commerciallyviable, AfricaRice is attempting to improveits grain quality as well.

According to AfricaRice scientist Dr.Semon Mande, the NERICA breakthroughoffered scientists a new opportunity to un-lock the treasure trove of genes in O.glaberrima, "But most of its wealth of ge-netic diversity remains to be tapped," hesaid. "The NERICA varieties were devel-oped from just a handful of O. glaberrimaparents. Yet, we have at our disposal near-ly 2,500 samples of O. glaberrima, pre-served in the AfricaRice genebank."

Using a novel strategy, Dr Mande hasdeveloped shorter O. glaberrima-type

plants that are less prone to lodging and donot shatter. These promising varieties withacceptable yield potential are being evalu-ated in farmers' fields in partnership withnational programs, using gender-sensitivefarmer-participatory approaches.

The work on O. glaberrima is part ofthe overall strategy of AfricaRice to developa wide range of rice varieties suitable forthe diverse ecologies of Africa through col-laborative projects with the InternationalRice Research Institute (IRRI) and otherpartners using conventional and advancedscientific tools. To facilitate this work, anew rice breeding task force for Africa un-der the coordination of Dr. Moussa Sie,AfricaRice scientist, was launched recently.

"Since Africa depends on imports tomeet 40 percent of its rice demand, it is ur-gent that we develop more productive,stress-tolerant rice varieties. The recentfood crisis, which hit African countries bad-ly, underlined the need for bold new effortsto boost local rice production through theimprovement of both Asian and Africanrice," said Dr. Papa Abdoulaye Seck, direc-tor general of AfricaRice.

The Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) is aleading pan-African research organizationworking to contribute to poverty alleviationand food security in Africa through re-search, development and partnership activ-ities.

The Guardian KILIMO KWANZATuesday 1 June, 2010

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The Guardian KILIMO KWANZA Tuesday 1 June, 2010

6 PERSPECTIVE FOOD SECURITY

By Miki Tasseni

CONSIDERABLE brain-storming has been goingon both in the countryand at various multilat-eral institutions or cen-tres in relation to theproblem of what to doabout the cotton sub-sec-

tor, in Tanzania as well as Africa generally.The issue is locally of strategic importanceas cotton was the one sector that was mosthit by the general decline in crop prices onaccount of the global downturn, as a worldfree trade regime exists in cotton products,pushing prices to the floor. When a declinein demand is added due to the lower ordersby large clothing outlets arises from thebanking sector tremors, all could be lost.

That is why the government asked theBank of Tanzania to prepare a rescue planfor various institutions both in the publicand private sector hit by the slump in pricesand in demand generally, otherwise manywould face closure.

The sum accepted and legislated uponwas around 1.7trillion shillings, roughly afifth of the year’s budget, or slightly abovethat figure, which means it was a substan-tial portion of what the country earned forthe year. That, by implication, implies plen-ty of development projects or improvementof routine conditions of civil servants or theprovision of public services generally, a bur-den.

While at the local level the effort wentinto subsidies for affected public institu-tions and private sector firms, there wereother efforts at the global level, amongthem the Common Fund for Commodities(CFC), targeting its intervention in im-provement of quality of the crop exportedoutside. The fund seems to be a replace-ment of the European Union fund for itsAfrican, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) part-ners, where a more liberal trade regime isnow being shaped. The World TradeOrganization vetoed trade preferences forthe former colonies, as EU countries riskedsanctions if they did not treat exportersequally.

CFC managing director, AmbassadorAli Mchumo, talks of the initiative as thefirst African cotton quality control centre,which goes a long way to show where in-deed is the problem located. The trade en-voy seems to be saying that no such thinghas ever been considered necessary but forsome reason it is now relevant, which isn’tsurprising in our case, given prevalent mal-practices of adding foreign material to cot-ton so that it weighs more and peasants arepaid slightly more! It was actually a matterof replacing the cotton crop for somethingelse, but the government has been preparedto countenance that idea.

Ambassador Mchumo made his re-marks while inaugurating the ‘regional cot-ton testing laboratory’ in Dar es Salaam,

which would be interesting at the worldtrade level if its interest was in checkingpossible imprints of genetic modification ofthe crop. That was the big topic with radi-cal organizations petitioning delegates toworld trade conferences, and now seems tobe getting cold feet as their other options orexpectations are drying up. In actual fact,climate change is now taking up energies ofmost of the familiar activists.

It would similarly have been a differentmatter if the laboratory was just one amongexpansion plans of the Tanzania Bureau ofStandards (TBS) but it comes up at a cru-cial moment in relation to our ability tomaintain standards in cotton. There is a tri-angular problem that the centre or strate-gists at the Bank of Tanzania and ministe-rial departments concerned, as to whethera solution is available that marries quality,price and acreage. Is there a way in whichthe peasant can produce, the trader pur-chases and sells in the world market, andrelevant taxes paid, without another tril-

lion shillings subsidy being sought?The CFC seeks to assist operators of

ginneries move to produce yarn for exportinstead of selling raw cotton, one reason be-ing the fact that tariffs have been removedfor yarn as well as finished materials, so itis no longer anti-competitive to process it.The critical drawback becomes quality,since primary purchasers, mostly still coop-erative societies, are routinely incapable ofensuring that the cotton they purchase isnot adulterated. If that is still a problem,there is an issue of how a laboratory locat-ed in Dar es Salaam can help.

What the centre is going to do is to con-duct instrumental testing of cotton before itis exported to foreign countries, so thatthere is certification of quality, instead ofbeing discovered to contain dirt and is re-jected wholesale. Indeed it can’t be ascer-tained right away if the subsidy arose sin-gularly from diminished demand and lowprices outside, or that the cotton was de-classified as ‘scrap cotton’ or something of

the sort, that is, trying to secure any buyer,and at whatever price. Isn’t water contami-nated cotton simply dumped?

For some reason there are efforts tomake quality testing an international cot-ton trade requirement, on the basis ofAmbassador Mchumo’s other remarks,opening the question of what is there to betested, in countries which do not have‘Tanzania type economies.’

For the testing isn’t of quality in thesense of the strength of yarn that comesfrom class A or class B cotton, or the vari-ous types of cotton for instance short lintand longer lint, with their respectivesources in Nile valley cotton zone, and else-where. Those aspects only come up in a cot-ton auction the way they auction coffee, teaor tobacco and not the subject of ‘testing;’what’s actually close to ‘testing’ in that re-gard would be ‘tasting.’

That is why it is surprising to hear theenvoy talk about the likelihood that ‘instru-ment testing of cotton was the way of the

future for the world cotton industry.’ Hesays that more than half of global cottonproduction was being instrument tested,noting that ‘it is of crucial importance thatproducers in developing countries are ableto participate in this reality.’ Is the testingone of quality in the sense of proper cottonor checking on foreign material being addedto the cotton – since the latter problemcouldn’t possibly involve half the cotton soldby major producers, whose populationsaren’t peasants as with us?

When he also remarks that ‘African cot-ton producing developing countries (sic)should not stand aside as these develop-ments take place,’ a new avenue to what isbeing talked about opens up, that a sort ofcompulsion is being instituted, and many inAfrica seem to be unhappy about what ishappening.

Rapidly, it is possible the producers andbuyers wish that certain shop floor agree-ments be observed where the buyer is re-sponsible for the quality of the produce, im-

plying that no one should insist on checkingthe cotton first. It is as if Africa wishesEurope to subsidize its cotton produce, pay-ing for dirty cotton.

Listening to Dr Mary Nagu, the minis-ter for Industries and Trade on that aspect,one thing emerged clearly, that the refer-ence of her remarks was responsibility ofcotton ginners to ensure that they producequality yarn – which means it isn’t the cot-ton they purchase in the first place but alsothe product they produce. That shifts thematter to a different level, but they may beconnected if the ginners can’t always checkmanually the quality of cotton they receive,and then it gets mixed up in the ginningprocess. The issue however would be whoactually resorts to testing a product – is itthe cotton buyer, by taking a sample of theproduce, or the ginner, after buying anuntested product, or tests the yarn, withouthaving tested the cotton in the first place?Would the peasant come in?

Dr Shaban Mwinjale, deputy perma-nent secretary in the ministry, gave a clear-er hint as to what the centre was all aboutwhen he urged countries in the eastern,central and southern Africa sub-region tomake use of the new facility. It generallymeans that once a country or company hasa product that is ready for export, or ispreparing yarn or lint for export, it wouldbe useful to make a quality test before go-ing ahead to finish the total production out-put, to ensure the quality is right. It meansthat there won’t be so much to be tested inthe country anyway, as that way it wouldbe improper to ask everyone else to alsoseek to use the facility. Implicitly of course,it also serves to indicate that primary pro-ducers aren’t the target of the testing facil-ity, but the processing industry for exportassurance.

That leaves us with the original ques-tion as to what would be done to ensurethat the cotton brought to ginneries or pur-chased by cooperative unions or privatetraders is of high quality. Here the remarkstaken in an ascending order don’t cast lightas to the issue, in which case one has to re-vert to a manual method of controlling forcotton quality at the purchasing source, anearly impossible problem.

Implied also is that if this was the causeof vast drawbacks in the manner our cottonfared in foreign markets and how a slightdownturn in demand affected the entire fi-nancial house of cards tied to the sub-sec-tor, the day of reckoning will not be far. Thecountry can’t just continue to disburse hun-dreds of billions of shillings to the sub-sec-tor each year so that those adding water totheir market share of the crop should alsoremain happy – and vote for the ruling par-ty in the next general election. There was anote of desperation in the dignitaries’ re-marks on testing for quality, and it is beingreinforced by renewed pressures on theshilling as well as on the balance of pay-ments, going a long way to set the budgetoutlook for the next fiscal year.

What however isn’t being admitted byall these authorities on the matter is thatthe peasant should be allowed to uproot cot-ton plants if he so wishes, and it should be-come a specialized crop by commercialfarmers who will themselves be agents ofquality check, as they won’t expect publicauthorities to carry any liabilities thereof.This much isn’t quite yet being accepted bythe cabinet or the ministry, but it consti-tutes the hard ground logic of the problemthat the peasant is totally inefficient as aproducer of the crop. The routine ritual thatthe peasant should produce one ‘cash crop’is now outdated, and in the thrust forKilimo Kwanza, ‘efficiency kwanza’ mustalso be targeted.

That is the only condition in which thecotton sub-sector will be self-reliant, not aguzzler of subsidies.

The not-so-white aspects ofcotton revival programme

Endangered African RiceVarieties gain elite status

Huge investmentcould haltfalling fishstocks

and breathnew life in

marine basedindustry

Since Africa depends on im-ports to meet 40 percent ofits rice demand, it is urgent

that we develop more productive ricevarieties. The recent food crisis, whichhit African countries badly, under-lined the need for bold new ef-forts

“

Frozen fish fillet

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WASILIANA NASI:Morogoro Rd, 1st Floor-Room 5, NSSF Building,

Ubungo, Dar es Salaam P. O. Box 71202, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Phone +255 222 450 426, Fax: +255 222 450 426Mob: +255 787 222 899

Email: [email protected]

TAMPATanzania Milk Processors Association

KUNYWA MAZIWA KWA AFYA YAKO!YALIYOSINDIKWA

NI BORA ZAIDI!

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Students at NturumetiPrimary School are grow-ing watermelons alongsidetimber and fruit trees aspart of the HealthyLearning programmeaimed at improving teach-ing, learning and nutrition,

according to a report by the WorldAgroforestry Centre in Nairobi.

"If all goes well, our watermelons willbe harvested in 145 days" Mr. ErnestTobiko, head teacher of Nturumeti PrimarySchool in the southern RIft Valley of Kenyais quoted by the centre’s publication.Watermelons have been intercropped withvarious tree species in an agroforestrylearning plot in the school. Research fromBrazil and elsewhere has shown that agro-forestry systems combining trees with wa-termelons are indeed very sustainable andcost-effective, and the school is eager to trythis out.

The agroforestry learning plot atNturumeti Primary School is part of theschool's Healthy Learning activities initiat-ed in late 2008. Other ongoing HealthyLearning projects in the school includerainwater harvesting, kitchen gardeningand a mango fruit orchard.

Use of practical activities to improveteaching and learning as well as the healthand nutrition status of school children areamong the main aims of the HealthyLearning programme. Nturumeti PrimarySchool, located in a remote part of the agro-pastoral Narok North district in Kenya, hassuccessfully contextualized this approachby making the projects participatory -thereby promoting learning by pupils,teachers and parents.

The school woodlot and fruit orchardare maintained by pupils who have adopted

the valuable trees. This is done under theguidance of the teachers hence the 100%survival rate of the trees, even after an ex-ceptionally dry year.

Adjacent to the woodlot is a fruit or-

chard where the school is growing graftedmango trees. The mango orchard serves asa demonstration site to the school commu-nity. Once the trees start fruiting, thepupils' meals will include a mango on cer-

tain days. Any surplus production will besold hence bringing income to the school.Mangoes can play an important role infood-based strategies to reduce vitamin Adeficiency and generate income. Mangoes

have the highest pro-vitamin A content ofall tropical fruits and can be produced inlarge quantities. The school is learning a lotfrom the World Agroforestry Centre's pub-lication Mango Growing in Kenya and the

Area Agricultural Officer has been provid-ing relevant technical input to the school ongood mango growing practices.

Nturumeti Primary School closely in-volves the community to ensure the sus-tainability of its projects. So far, they haveassisted in the purchase of the seedlings,initial land preparation and establishing afence around the school to protect the trees.They have also supported the school duringthe installation of a water tank to harvestrain water. In addition to that, communitymembers replicate what is going on in theschool in their homes.

Teachers and pupils have actively beenusing agroforestry learning materials toimprove the projects as well as the school'sacademic performance. Miti, an Africanmagazine focusing on tree growing as abusiness, is used in the preparation of les-son plans. And the Young African Express -an East-African magazine for school chil-dren (and their teachers) focusing on lifeskills, health and nutrition, and environ-mental education - is shared with pupils foreasy understanding of science and relatedsubjects. The Healthy Learning pro-gramme has already contributed to im-proved school performance: the school wasawarded the best in the whole Division inthe 2009 Kenya Certificate of PrimaryEducation (KCPE).

The Healthy Learning interventions inthe school are fully supported by the rele-vant authorities in the district. "HealthyLearning is most welcome in this district. Itis something that should have been carriedout all along since it complements theschool meals programme. It is necessarysince this is the generation that can changea lot - especially in this community," saysMrs Jane Mtange, the District EducationOfficer for Narok North District.

The Guardian KILIMO KWANZA Tuesday 1 June, 2010

8 WHAT OTHERS DO

Agroforestry for better health

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