Kilimo Kwanza

Tuesday 1 June, 2010 kilimokwanza@guardian.co.tz

Is a White Revolution in the Green one possible?

The Guardian KILIMO KWANZA

Tuesday 1 June, 2010

EDITORIAL/PERSPECTIVE inside

Can Tanzania Achieve a White Revolution within the Green?

Do Tanzanians realise the importance of milk? Yes, they do. That is why they are consuming increasing amounts of it every year. In fact every year Tanzania is registering an increase of 9.5 percent in consumption of milk...imports!

The not-so-white aspects of cotton revival programme

Dairy industry cries out for urgent help

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ETIRED third-phase president Benjamin Mkapa will recall having once nostalgically remarked that time had come for Tanzania to steal from the Arusha Declaration by aiming more resolutely for self-development and, by extension, selfreliance.

He said the world economic climate was undergoing drastic changes, donor fatigue had set in and the donor countries were preoccupied more with their own internal problems and “it’s dawning upon us that really we must drop the bucket where we are and develop by our own bootstraps”.

It is 15 long years since that renewed contemplation of the virtues of the 1967 “blueprint for Tanzania’s socialist path” of dear memory that placed a premium on the use of locally available resources to realise social and economic development in dignity.

Any tangible evidence that the declaration’s revolutionary spirit has continued to catch on and that the combination of the country’s own human, natural, financial and other resources has helped move the nation up the ladder of meaningful development?

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

If the subject of reference is the livestock sector in general and the dairy industry in particular, which is the main topic in this issue of our Kilimo Kwanza supplement, the sad fact is that Tanzania is still long distances from the goals it has set for itself.

The third-phase presidency publicly declared that it would set out to make land as asset in terms investment opportunities that would transform livestock into a reliable source of real and recognisable annual income just as the use of land for cash crops were for the peasantry.

It regretted the irony that Tanzania was supposed to be the third or fourth country in Africa in terms of the size of its national herd of livestock but remained without a livestock and diary industry worth writing home about.

Any noticeable improvement since?

Unfortunately, not much, if the findings in the lead piece in this supplement is anything to go by.

For instance, we are told that Tanzanians have been consuming so much milk that they import the item from 37 foreign countries. But there is a contradiction here: a whole two million litres of locally produced fresh milk – or half the amount available in the country – is, meanwhile, destroyed every passing day just because it cannot reach consumers within the country before it goes bad!

It is especially saddening that there are a number

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

A distraught entrepreneur who qualifies as one of the most quotable investors in Tanzania’s livestock sector says he sees no reason for the country not to become a giant in the dairy industry.

He boasts vast experience in the industry and thus knows his onions so well that when he cites lack of investment as one of the major factors hindering the sector from blooming, there is every reason for the nation to stop and listen – and then take appropriate action.

Milk is by nature highly perishable, its quality subject to all manner of factors. The least mishandling can see it go bad and even turn toxic. That’s how vulnerable the precious liquid is – and, hence, the need to change it into a form that is stable enough to last.

Fortunately, Tanzania is no stranger to modernday milk processing. As long ago as the 1960s the country boasted a relatively technologically advanced dairy industry, complete with factories churning out huge quantities of milk and other dairy products such as butter for both export and consumption within the country.

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

Whatever befell these super class items of ours is history. But we ought to pick up the fragments of this proud history and piece them together; they surely hold crucial lessons about how we could move on again, this time with the benefit of hindsight and therefore with greater hope for success.

It is not too late to reverse the tide, particularly with Kilimo Kwanza having the development of the dairy industry so much close to its heart. It can be done - if Tanzanians in their millions throw their full weight behind efforts to turn the country into a place really flowing with milk and honey – both proven health boosters and income earners.

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Wallace Mauggo Editor

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Tanzania dairy industry holds key to rural prosperity

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By Guardian Writer

CONSIDERABLE brainstorming has been going on both in the country and at various multilateral institutions or centres in relation to the problem of what to do about the cotton subsector, in Tanzania as well as Africa generally.

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Huge investment could halt falling fish stocks and breath new life in marine based industry Investing around $8 billion a year in rebuilding and greening the world's fisheries could raise catches to 112 million tonnes annually while triggering benefits to industry, consumers and the global economy totalling $1.7 trillion over the next 40 years.

Agroforestry for healthy

MILK WEEK

evelopment of the dairy sector could be the most effective vehicle for significantly transforming the povertystricken rural Tanzania, through improved household nutrition security and enhanced incomes.

Contributing to the discourse of this year’s Milk Week, the registrar of the Diary Board Mr Charles M.D. Mutagwaba said in a statement however, that the country’s dairy industry is still uncoordinated, poorly organised and producing far below capacity.

This year’s National Milk Promotion Week’s theme of ‘Je! Umekunywa Maziwa Leo? Fuga Ngombe wa Maziwa’ (Did You Drink Milk Today? Keep a Dairy Cow) will take long to resonate with the public because milk is very expensive to drink and keeping a cow in the circumstances is more easily said than done.

For in spite of the country having the third highest cattle population on the continent (coming after Ethiopia and Sudan) milk production is very low and the capacity to protect it just for several hours to reach the market is almost non-existent, several decades after independence.

The Government has been putting a lot of emphasis on dairy development in the country since the mid 70s. Dairy development policies and strategies have been changing in accordance with the overall economic policies of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd phase governments.

During the mid seventies, the government established a number of parastatals, namely the Dairy Farming Company (DAFCO), Tanzania Dairies Ltd. (TDL) and Heifer Breeding units (HBUs) that operated under a holding company, the Livestock Development authority (LIDA) mainly through IDA-World Bank loan and the European Economic Community (EEC)/World Food Programme (WFP) food commodity aid.

Following liberalization of the economy during the 2nd phase government (19851995), these parastatal organizations were dissolved and all the seven dairy processing plants under TDL and some farms previously run by DAFCO have been privatized.

Since the mid 80’s the government policy has put a lot of emphasis on development of the dairy industry through empowering smallholder farmers.

This policy has been supported by a number of donor funded projects in Tanga and Kagera (Dutch Government, 19762005), the Southern highlands regions of Mbeya and Iringa (Swiss government support 1976 – 2004), the Heifer Project International (various regions), FAO/UNDP (Kilimanjaro), the Irish government (Morogoro and Zanzibar) the Austroproject Association (Dar es Salaam, Coast, Mwanza and Mara Regions – 19932006) and Land ’O Lakes (Dar es salaam and Arusha /Kilimanjaro) and Farm Africa Dairy goat projects in Babati District.

The combined efforts of government and development partners cited above resulted in expansion of the improved dairy herd from 143,000 in 1984 to 385,119 in 2002 kept on 129, 010 smallholder farms.

number of activities including:

Stakeholder organizations Supported by the Dutch government supported Tanga Dairy Development Programme (TDDP), the first regional dairy stakeholder apex organization, the Tanga Dairy Co-operative Union was established in Tanga in 1995 out of nine primary Dairy Co-operative Societies. The Coastal Dairy Farmers Association (CODAFA) was established in 1995 by individual willing farmers of Dar es Salaam and its peri-urban hinterland. With support Smallholder dairy Support programme (SDSP) of the last phase of the Dutch government support to the Tanzania dairy industry two national stakeholder institutions, the Tanzania Milk Producers Association (TAMPRODA) and the Tanzania Milk processors Association (TAMPA) have been established during 2004. National Milk Traders Association has been registered in February 2010.

Tanzania Dairy Board Following a resolution of the meeting of the 2nd National Dairy Development Conference, NDDC held at AICC in Arusha in 1998, to establish a National Dairy Development Board to regulate and co-ordinate the development of the dairy industry, the Tanzania Parliament passed a bill establishing the Tanzania Dairy Board which became legally effective in July 2004. The Board is answerable to the Minister and to the Annual Council of the Board which draws its membership from stakeholder organization of each district of Tanzania Mainland.

The Board has 4 statutory meetings per year while the Annual Council has to meet at least once a year. In 2007 the ministry of livestock Development and Fisheries formulated and approved the regulation which will enforced together with the Dairy Industry Act, 2004.

The TDB’s mandate is to promote and regulates the dairy industry in Tanzania mainland. It promotes production, collection, processing, marketing and consumption of milk and dairy products by facilitating stakeholders activities. The main functions of the board are regulation of dairy industry activities, development of dairy industry, promotion, advocacy, and coordination of dairy stakeholders.

A Tanzanian woman who has decided to part with poverty by keeping a few cows

Current government estimates are 500,000 improved dairy cattle (both smallholder + commercial farms). They produce about 30% of the estimated 1.15 billion litres of milk per annum. More than 70% comes from estimated 16.4 million indigenous cattle kept by about 1.6 million households.

Various studies show that dairying contributes significantly to household nutrition security and incomes and is a potential ve-

hicle for rural poverty eradication under the country’s’ MKUKUTA strategy.

In spite of these gains, the dairy industry is still constrained by a number of problems. It is uncoordinated and poorly organized; productivity is low (about 1,700-1800 litres per annum/cow); only about 20 million litres of milk out of approximately 300 million litres of locally produced milk marketed off-farm is processed by local indus-

tries; it is overburdened by multiple and/or high taxation on processed milk products; milk imports are increasing thereby depressing market access of locally produced milk and per capita consumption is only about 40 litres per annum compared with 200 litres recommended by FAO or 100 litres per capita in neighbouring Kenya. In order to address these constraints dairy industry stakeholders have undertaken a

Milk campaigns The first milk consumption promotion was organized in June 1997 by the Coastal Dairy Farmers Association (CODAFA) following a regional meeting for Eastern and Central African countries that was supported by Land O’ Lakes in Dar es Salaam.

Since then this has been an annual event celebrated during the first week of June.

The need to promote milk as a healthy and nutritious food is felt in many countries throughout the World. Each country in the world strives to become self sufficient in milk production and consumption.

Following requests from member countries, the FAO of the United Nations, has since 2001 declared June 1st of every year to be celebrated as WORLD MILK DAY. Most countries celebrate it in different ways, conducting milk rallies, distribution of milk to school children, orphans etc, media campaigns and political speeches.

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Students at Nturumeti Primary School are growing watermelons alongside timber and fruit trees as part of the Healthy Learning programme aimed at improving teaching, learning and nutrition, according to a report by the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi 8

Artwork & Design: KN Mayunga

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To have your organisation promoted in Kilimo Kwanza, Call: 0787 571308, 0655 571308 0754 571308

HEAD OFFICE: IRINGA, P.O. Box 562, Tel: 026 2725200, Fax: 026 2725006, Email: info@asasgrouptz.com BRANCH: DAR ES SALAAM: P.O. Box 7215, Tel: 2865967, Fax: 022 2861849, Email: asas@raha.com, Website: www.asasgrouptz.com

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The Guardian KILIMO KWANZA

Tuesday 1 June, 2010

The Guardian KILIMO KWANZA

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Tuesday 1 June, 2010

MILK WEEK

Can Tanzania Achieve a White Revolution within the Green?

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By Special Correspondent o Tanzanians realise the importance of milk? Yes, they do.

That is why they are consuming increasing amounts of it every year. In fact every year Tanzania is registering an increase of 9.5 percent in consumption of milk... imports! So thirsty are Tanzanians for milk that they import it from 37 different foreign countries. But in addition, Tanzania wastes nearly two million litres of fresh milk everyday across the country because it cannot be transported safely and in time to the consumers who need it within the country.

There are many reasons why Tanzania should take its dairy industry very seriously. One of them, according to the CEO of Tan Dairies, Mr Devangwa Mmari, is that it is the quickest proven way to eliminate mass poverty in the rural areas, where majority of the population is found.

“Rural poverty is mostly perpetrated by lack of money circulation which locks the majority of our people out of the monetary system,” Mmari told Kilimo Kwanza last week. “And there is evidence that countries that have promoted their diary industry have managed to get most of their people out of poverty because of the link established between the (rural) milk producer and the (urban) market that creates a daily cash flow between the two.

Mmari says if a peasant home has at least one cow, it starts earning a daily income from mainly feeding the cow on crop residues, and start getting out of the abject poverty of people who live on less that one dollar a day. For example, India, which has over a billion people but took its ‘white revolution’ seriously, now only has 3.3% of its living under one dollar. Next door Kenya has 22.8 % of its people still under that abject category while in Tanzania, more than half of our people (57.8%) are still under there. But the situation in Nigeria with all its oil wealth stands at a miserable 70.8% of the Nigerians still living below the poverty line.

But does is the situation in Tanzania favourable for the improvement of the dairy sector? According to Mmari, Tanzania is the best placed country in Africa to develop a successful dairy industry. The country has the third largest number of cattle on the continent, numbering about 19 million.

It is only third after Ethiopia and Sudan.

So what happens to all the milk that is produced by so the many cows in the country? A about half is consumed by the farmers and their neighbours. Not more than half gets to the market because there is very limited capacity to protect it and transport it to the market before it deteriorates. So about two million litres a day are wasted like that around the country.

Instead, 70% of the milk consumed by Tanzanians is then imported from some 37 different countries, because it can reach our shops in preserved form, while the milk produced in Tanzania cannot reach the consumers in the country.

Asked why he does not consume milk from the local cows but prefers to buy foreign milk from the supermarket, an ordinary Dar es Salaam resident, Mr Jesse Mayunga laughs and says he has no intention of putting his three-year-old son’s life at risk.

“I tried to buy milk from a local supplier who has some cows,” he recalls. “But the quality was unreliable, different every day die to contamination and adulteration. So it is imported formulas for my babies and NIDO for the rest of us adults.”

The perishability of milk makes the development of the sector virtually impossible without careful, substantial investment.

Without basic processing which starts with cooling, milk is no good a day or less after

The Guardian KILIMO KWANZA

Tuesday 1 June, 2010

MILK WEEK

Producers give tips to entrench dairy into Kilimo Kwanza pillars

On the occasion of this year’s Milk Week, the Tanzania Milk Processors Association has made its suggestions for firmly entrenching the Dairy agenda into the ten pillars of Kilimo Kwanza as follows: 1 Demonstrate Political will to push our agricultural transformation. We would like to see a clear short actionable promising message in the Dairy sector transformation from the president.

2 Enhanced financing for agriculture. Specify and add more budget to cover Dairy Development Programs in the National Dairy Board, Strategic Small holder dairy Procuders capacity building, School Milk Feeding Programs 3 Institutional reorganization and management of agriculture. Tanzania Dairy Board needs major transformation into Dairy Development Board which should cater for sectoral development requirements with a clear road map and how to implement 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 effectively 5 Land availability for agriculture. A proper mapping on where cattle should feed, areas to erect milk collection centers, processing areas in every strategic milk producing area.

6 Incentives to stimulate investments in agriculture. Accommodative taxation to stimulate investment into dairy sector. Use money collected from the imports of dairy products to develop the sector.

7 Industrialization for agricultural transformation.

Strong dairy cooperatives with dairy hubs to cater for all services including linking them to processing industries for better transformation.

8 Science, technology and human resources to support agricultural transformation. The Proposed/allocated 1% of GDP to agriculture research and development should portion wise be divided into all strategic sector research like animal breeding, agro-processing innovations, market linkage systems.

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collection from the cow. So lack of investment is seen as one of the biggest obstacles to the development if the industry in Tanzania.

So what are the chances the sector that has a high potential with a huge domestic market taking off? Very high, say Mmari.

Even at the present poor quality breed levels, a small livestock keeper with ten cows can produce litres of milk per day. At the worst possible price of shs300 a litre, he can earn shs15,000 or ten dollars in addition to catering 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 the livestock farmers already know how to look after the animals. The country already has a modern breeding centre at Arusha. This means that cross breeding with millions of the local cows can take place to produce millions of high-yielding cross breeds and automatically increase milk production by 4 times per cow. Moreover, the cross breeds

grow much faster, have more body weight and are also resistant to many diseases like their indigenous mothers.

Besides the natural resources like land, water and fertile soils, Tanzania has a great reservoir of modern scientific agricultural and animal husbandry knowledge. Besides several agricultural training institutions, The sokoine University of Agriculture has in the past few decades produced hundreds of Phds, thousands of Masters and numerous Bachelors graduates in different branches of agriculture.

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Infrastructure development to support agricultural transformation. Milk need to be cooled and transported or directed to value addition centers Collection centers are the key to this transformation as they will certain assure farmers good price as well as attractive business from processor in terms of volume collection.

10 Mobilization of Tanzanians to support and participate in the implementation of KILIMO KWANZA. Should start by mobilizing government to buy Tanzanian made products especially milk for schools and other institutions.

The not-so-white aspects of cotton revival programme

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By Miki Tasseni

ONSIDERABLE brainstorming has been going on both in the country and at various multilateral institutions or centres in relation to the problem of what to do about the cotton sub-sector, in Tanzania as well as Africa generally.

The issue is locally of strategic importance as cotton was the one sector that was most hit by the general decline in crop prices on account of the global downturn, as a world free trade regime exists in cotton products, pushing prices to the floor. When a decline in demand is added due to the lower orders by large clothing outlets arises from the banking sector tremors, all could be lost.

That is why the government asked the Bank of Tanzania to prepare a rescue plan for various institutions both in the public and private sector hit by the slump in prices and in demand generally, otherwise many would face closure.

The sum accepted and legislated upon was around 1.7trillion shillings, roughly a fifth of the year’s budget, or slightly above that figure, which means it was a substantial portion of what the country earned for the year. That, by implication, implies plenty of development projects or improvement of routine conditions of civil servants or the provision of public services generally, a burden.

While at the local level the effort went into subsidies for affected public institutions and private sector firms, there were other efforts at the global level, among them the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC), targeting its intervention in improvement of quality of the crop exported outside. The fund seems to be a replacement of the European Union fund for its African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) partners, where a more liberal trade regime is now being shaped. The World Trade Organization vetoed trade preferences for the former colonies, as EU countries risked sanctions if they did not treat exporters equally.

CFC managing director, Ambassador Ali Mchumo, talks of the initiative as the first African cotton quality control centre, which goes a long way to show where indeed is the problem located. The trade envoy seems to be saying that no such thing has ever been considered necessary but for some reason it is now relevant, which isn’t surprising in our case, given prevalent malpractices of adding foreign material to cotton so that it weighs more and peasants are paid slightly more! It was actually a matter of replacing the cotton crop for something else, but the government has been prepared to countenance that idea.

Ambassador Mchumo made his remarks while inaugurating the ‘regional cotton testing laboratory’ in Dar es Salaam, Investing around $8 billion a year in rebuilding and greening the world's fisheries could raise catches to 112 million tonnes annually while triggering benefits to industry, consumers and the global economy totalling $1.7 trillion over the next 40 years, The UN Environmental Programme information office reported recently.

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

The investment, some of which can be covered by phasing down or phasing out some of the $27 billion-worth of fishing subsides currently in place, is needed to dramatically reduce the excess capacity of the world's fishing fleets while supporting workers in alternative livelihoods.

Funding is also required to reform and re-focus fisheries management, including through policies such as tradable quotas and the establishment of Marine Protected Areas, in order to allow depleted stocks to recover and grow.

Such measures, backed up by bold and forward-looking investments, would not only generate important economic and environmental returns.

They would also assist in fighting poverty by securing a primary source of protein for close to one billion people.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary

which would be interesting at the world trade level if its interest was in checking possible imprints of genetic modification of the crop. That was the big topic with radical organizations petitioning delegates to world trade conferences, and now seems to be getting cold feet as their other options or expectations are drying up. In actual fact, climate change is now taking up energies of most of the familiar activists.

It would similarly have been a different matter if the laboratory was just one among expansion plans of the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) but it comes up at a crucial moment in relation to our ability to maintain standards in cotton. There is a triangular problem that the centre or strategists at the Bank of Tanzania and ministerial departments concerned, as to whether a solution is available that marries quality, price and acreage. Is there a way in which the peasant can produce, the trader purchases and sells in the world market, and relevant taxes paid, without another tril-

Huge investment could halt falling fish stocks and breath new life in marine based industry

lion shillings subsidy being sought?

The CFC seeks to assist operators of ginneries move to produce yarn for export instead of selling raw cotton, one reason being the fact that tariffs have been removed for yarn as well as finished materials, so it is no longer anti-competitive to process it.

The critical drawback becomes quality, since primary purchasers, mostly still cooperative societies, are routinely incapable of ensuring that the cotton they purchase is not adulterated. If that is still a problem, there is an issue of how a laboratory located in Dar es Salaam can help.

What the centre is going to do is to conduct instrumental testing of cotton before it is exported to foreign countries, so that there is certification of quality, instead of being discovered to contain dirt and is rejected wholesale. Indeed it can’t be ascertained right away if the subsidy arose singularly from diminished demand and low prices outside, or that the cotton was declassified as ‘scrap cotton’ or something of

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

For some reason there are efforts to make quality testing an international cotton trade requirement, on the basis of Ambassador Mchumo’s other remarks, opening the question of what is there to be tested, in countries which do not have ‘Tanzania type economies.’

For the testing isn’t of quality in the sense of the strength of yarn that comes from class A or class B cotton, or the various types of cotton for instance short lint and longer lint, with their respective sources in Nile valley cotton zone, and elsewhere. Those aspects only come up in a cotton auction the way they auction coffee, tea or tobacco and not the subject of ‘testing;’ what’s actually close to ‘testing’ in that regard would be ‘tasting.’

That is why it is surprising to hear the envoy talk about the likelihood that ‘instrument testing of cotton was the way of the

future for the world cotton industry.’ He says that more than half of global cotton production was being instrument tested, noting that ‘it is of crucial importance that producers in developing countries are able to participate in this reality.’ Is the testing one of quality in the sense of proper cotton or checking on foreign material being added to the cotton – since the latter problem couldn’t possibly involve half the cotton sold by major producers, whose populations aren’t peasants as with us?

When he also remarks that ‘African cotton producing developing countries (sic) should not stand aside as these developments take place,’ a new avenue to what is being talked about opens up, that a sort of compulsion is being instituted, and many in Africa seem to be unhappy about what is happening.

Rapidly, it is possible the producers and buyers wish that certain shop floor agreements be observed where the buyer is responsible for the quality of the produce, im-

Frozen fish fillet

plying that no one should insist on checking the cotton first. It is as if Africa wishes Europe to subsidize its cotton produce, paying for dirty cotton.

Listening to Dr Mary Nagu, the minister for Industries and Trade on that aspect, one thing emerged clearly, that the reference of her remarks was responsibility of cotton ginners to ensure that they produce quality yarn – which means it isn’t the cotton they purchase in the first place but also the product they produce. That shifts the matter to a different level, but they may be connected if the ginners can’t always check manually the quality of cotton they receive, and then it gets mixed up in the ginning process. The issue however would be who actually resorts to testing a product – is it the cotton buyer, by taking a sample of the produce, or the ginner, after buying an untested product, or tests the yarn, without having tested the cotton in the first place?

Would the peasant come in?

Dr Shaban Mwinjale, deputy permanent secretary in the ministry, gave a clearer hint as to what the centre was all about when he urged countries in the eastern, central and southern Africa sub-region to make use of the new facility. It generally means that once a country or company has a product that is ready for export, or is preparing yarn or lint for export, it would be useful to make a quality test before going ahead to finish the total production output, to ensure the quality is right. It means that there won’t be so much to be tested in the country anyway, as that way it would be improper to ask everyone else to also seek to use the facility. Implicitly of course, it also serves to indicate that primary producers aren’t the target of the testing facility, but the processing industry for export assurance.

That leaves us with the original question as to what would be done to ensure that the cotton brought to ginneries or purchased by cooperative unions or private traders is of high quality. Here the remarks taken in an ascending order don’t cast light as to the issue, in which case one has to revert to a manual method of controlling for cotton quality at the purchasing source, a nearly impossible problem.

Implied also is that if this was the cause of vast drawbacks in the manner our cotton fared in foreign markets and how a slight downturn in demand affected the entire financial house of cards tied to the sub-sector, the day of reckoning will not be far. The country can’t just continue to disburse hundreds of billions of shillings to the sub-sector each year so that those adding water to their market share of the crop should also remain happy – and vote for the ruling party in the next general election. There was a note of desperation in the dignitaries’ remarks on testing for quality, and it is being reinforced by renewed pressures on the shilling as well as on the balance of payments, going a long way to set the budget outlook for the next fiscal year.

What however isn’t being admitted by all these authorities on the matter is that the peasant should be allowed to uproot cotton plants if he so wishes, and it should become a specialized crop by commercial farmers who will themselves be agents of quality check, as they won’t expect public authorities to carry any liabilities thereof.

This much isn’t quite yet being accepted by the cabinet or the ministry, but it constitutes the hard ground logic of the problem that the peasant is totally inefficient as a producer of the crop. The routine ritual that the peasant should produce one ‘cash crop’ is now outdated, and in the thrust for Kilimo Kwanza, ‘efficiency kwanza’ must also be targeted.

That is the only condition in which the cotton sub-sector will be self-reliant, not a guzzler of subsidies.

General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "Fisheries across the world are being plundered, or exploited at unsustainable rates. It is a failure of management of what will prove to be monumental proportions unless addressed."

"The lives and livelihoods of over half a billion people, linked with the health of this industry, will depend on the tough but also transformational choices Governments make now and over the years to come," he added.

"The Green Economy preview report offers a way of maximizing the economic, social and environmental returns from rebuilding, reforming and sustaining fisheries for current and future generations.

The scenarios recognize that millions of fishers will need support in retraining and that fishing fleets must shrink.

But this needs to be set against a rise in catches, an overall climb in incomes for coastal communities and companies, improvements in the health of the marine environment and ultimately hundreds of millions of people whose incomes and livelihoods are linked to fishing," he added.

The final Green Economy report, which will cover 11 sectors from agriculture and waste to cities and tourism, will be published in late 2010.

This preview, launched during the meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Rio+20 meeting in Brazil in 2012, covers marine fisheries, water and transport.

FOOD SECURITY

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Endangered African Rice Varieties gain elite status

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s part of a redoubled effort to stave off future food crises by bringing Africa's rice production in line with its rapidly growing consumption, scientists have announced a paradigm shift in rice research for the region, which will give elite status to genetically diverse indigenous varieties, The UN Environmental Programme information office reported last week.

Long considered a poor cousin of the Asian rice grown around the world, African rice will be the focus of a major scientific initiative to break the yield ceiling in farmers' fields.

New findings reported by the Beninbased Africa Rice Center, which is supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), counter the widely held view that African rice, preferred by local consumers for its taste, is inherently lower yielding than Asian rice. They also confirm its remarkable adaptability to harsh growing conditions in Africa and hence its value for developing improved varieties suited to a changing climate.

Rice consumption in Africa is growing faster 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 most important source of dietary energy; it is the third most important for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. But production during that same period grew more slowly, creating a gap between rice supply and demand.

This has saddled African governments with huge import bills, estimated at US$3.6 billion in 2008.

African rice -- known scientifically as Oryza glaberrima -- was domesticated about 3,500 years ago in West Africa, where it thrived for centuries. But today it is grown only in scattered pockets, near the brink of extinction. Most African rice farmers have abandoned their native varieties for high-yielding Asian rice (O. sativa), which was introduced to the continent through European trade with Asia via Africa about 450 years ago.

"African rice was initially ignored by mainstream research," said Dr. Koichi Futakuchi, an ecophysiologist at AfricaRice. "Later, when scientists realized that it had valuable characteristics, they began using it as a source for desirable traits to improve the higher yielding Asian rice. But now for the first time, we're reversing the gene flow, extracting desirable traits from the Asian rice and transferring them into the African rice."

In the 1990s, AfricaRice researchers

TAMPA

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crossed the two rice species with the aim of developing varieties that combine the adaptability of O. glaberrima to local growing conditions with the high yields of O. sativa. The result was New Rice for Africa, or NERICA. More than 80 NERICA varieties have been developed for rainfed environments, adopted by farmers in about 20 African countries and the demand for NERICA seed is very high across the region.

The hardiness of O. glaberrima results from its strong ability to compete with weeds and to withstand rice pests and diseases, fluctuations in water depth, infertile

soils (including toxic levels of iron), severe weather and even human neglect. For example a single variety like CG14, which was the O.glaberrima parent of the first group of NERICA varieties, is resistant to multiple constraints. "This makes it highly desirable for poor farmers.

But, since such resistance is controlled by many genes, it will be difficult to transfer them fully to O. sativa." said Dr. Futakuchi.

AfricaRice has recently embarked on an ambitious program to improve O. glaberrima, which will offer farmers varieties that

Since Africa depends on imports to meet 40 percent of its rice demand, it is urgent that we develop more productive rice varieties. The recent food crisis, which hit African countries badly, underlined the need for bold new efforts

Tanzania Milk Processors Association

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are well armed against Africa's multiple constraints and have acceptable yield potential in rainfed environments. A major objective of the new research is to overcome two main drawbacks that account for low yields of O. glaberrima: lodging (a tendency for plants to fall over when the grain is ripe) and shattering (shedding of ripe grain at crop maturity).

"African rice generally yields better than Asian rice under harsh conditions, where pests and other stresses are intense.

But if the problems of grain shattering and lodging were overcome, it could also give a quite acceptable yield of 5-6 tonnes per hectare in more favorable, rainfed lowland environments," Dr. Futakuchi said. To make the African rice more commercially viable, AfricaRice is attempting to improve its grain quality as well.

According to AfricaRice scientist Dr. Semon Mande, the NERICA breakthrough offered scientists a new opportunity to unlock the treasure trove of genes in O. glaberrima, "But most of its wealth of genetic diversity remains to be tapped," he said. "The NERICA varieties were developed from just a handful of O. glaberrima parents. Yet, we have at our disposal nearly 2,500 samples of O. glaberrima, preserved in the AfricaRice genebank."

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

plants that are less prone to lodging and do not shatter. These promising varieties with acceptable yield potential are being evaluated in farmers' fields in partnership with national programs, using gender-sensitive farmer-participatory approaches.

The work on O. glaberrima is part of the overall strategy of AfricaRice to develop a wide range of rice varieties suitable for the diverse ecologies of Africa through collaborative projects with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and other partners using conventional and advanced scientific tools. To facilitate this work, a new rice breeding task force for Africa under the coordination of Dr. Moussa Sie, AfricaRice scientist, was launched recently.

"Since Africa depends on imports to meet 40 percent of its rice demand, it is urgent that we develop more productive, stress-tolerant rice varieties. The recent food crisis, which hit African countries badly, underlined the need for bold new efforts to boost local rice production through the improvement of both Asian and African rice," said Dr. Papa Abdoulaye Seck, director general of AfricaRice.

The Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) is a leading pan-African research organization working to contribute to poverty alleviation and food security in Africa through research, development and partnership activities.

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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: +255 222 450 426 Mob: +255 787 222 899 Email: tampa_office@yahoo.co.uk

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PERSPECTIVE

The Guardian KILIMO KWANZA

Tuesday 1 June, 2010

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The Guardian KILIMO KWANZA

The Guardian KILIMO KWANZA

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Tuesday 1 June, 2010

WHAT OTHERS DO

Agroforestry for better health S the valuable trees. This is done under the guidance of the teachers hence the 100% survival rate of the trees, even after an exceptionally dry year.

Adjacent to the woodlot is a fruit or-

chard where the school is growing grafted mango trees. The mango orchard serves as a demonstration site to the school community. Once the trees start fruiting, the pupils' meals will include a mango on cer-

tain days. Any surplus production will be sold hence bringing income to the school.

Mangoes can play an important role in food-based strategies to reduce vitamin A deficiency and generate income. Mangoes

have the highest pro-vitamin A content of all tropical fruits and can be produced in large quantities. The school is learning a lot from the World Agroforestry Centre's publication Mango Growing in Kenya and the

Area Agricultural Officer has been providing relevant technical input to the school on good mango growing practices.

Nturumeti Primary School closely involves the community to ensure the sustainability of its projects. So far, they have assisted in the purchase of the seedlings, initial land preparation and establishing a fence around the school to protect the trees.

They have also supported the school during the installation of a water tank to harvest rain water. In addition to that, community members replicate what is going on in the school in their homes.

Teachers and pupils have actively been using agroforestry learning materials to improve the projects as well as the school's academic performance. Miti, an African magazine focusing on tree growing as a business, is used in the preparation of lesson plans. And the Young African Express an East-African magazine for school children (and their teachers) focusing on life skills, health and nutrition, and environmental education - is shared with pupils for easy understanding of science and related subjects. The Healthy Learning programme has already contributed to improved school performance: the school was awarded the best in the whole Division in the 2009 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE).

The Healthy Learning interventions in the school are fully supported by the relevant authorities in the district. "Healthy Learning is most welcome in this district. It is something that should have been carried out all along since it complements the school meals programme. It is necessary since this is the generation that can change a lot - especially in this community," says Mrs Jane Mtange, the District Education Officer for Narok North District.

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tudents at Nturumeti Primary School are growing watermelons alongside timber and fruit trees as part of the Healthy Learning programme aimed at improving teaching, learning and nutrition, according to a report by the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi.

"If all goes well, our watermelons will be harvested in 145 days" Mr. Ernest Tobiko, head teacher of Nturumeti Primary School in the southern RIft Valley of Kenya is quoted by the centre’s publication.

Watermelons have been intercropped with various tree species in an agroforestry learning plot in the school. Research from Brazil and elsewhere has shown that agroforestry systems combining trees with watermelons are indeed very sustainable and cost-effective, and the school is eager to try this out.

The agroforestry learning plot at Nturumeti Primary School is part of the school's Healthy Learning activities initiated in late 2008. Other ongoing Healthy Learning projects in the school include rainwater harvesting, kitchen gardening and a mango fruit orchard.

Use of practical activities to improve teaching and learning as well as the health and nutrition status of school children are among the main aims of the Healthy Learning programme. Nturumeti Primary School, located in a remote part of the agropastoral Narok North district in Kenya, has successfully contextualized this approach by making the projects participatory thereby promoting learning by pupils, teachers and parents.

The school woodlot and fruit orchard are maintained by pupils who have adopted