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Published: September 30th 2012
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Tea Plantation In Njombe
This would be a farmer who has a contract with a tea company According to the
Encyclopedia of the Nations, the agriculture sector in Tanzania engages 80%!o(MISSING)f the labour force in Tanzania. With a population of approximately 45 million, that number is a staggering 36 million. Whether it is farming, processing, importing, exporting, or manufacturing, they fall under the umbrella of agriculture.
Farming in Tanzania is broken down in several categories... Animal Husbandry and Food crops.
Animal Husbandry involves beef, sheep (very few), goats, pork, and chicken. The fishing industry is another whole ball of wax.
Food crops are broken down to
Staple and
Cash Crops.
Cash Crops include tea, cotton, tobacco, coffee, cashews, sisal, cloves, spices, flowers. . They are produced for export. Most of the farmers who deal with these crops are "contract farmers". This means they have a contract with the big compnaies to plants, grow, and harvest their crops. The employer usually gives them everything they need (seeds, equipment, etc) in order to get the quality that they are looking for.
Staple Crops are what we are focusing on with this new season of
Ruka Juu, the reality series that Femina is producing. We are trying to get the youth in Tanzania to get
engaged in farming... showing them that they can make a living without having to come to the big city where the jobs are minimal.
Agriculture in Tanzania is dominated by smallholder farmers who have farms that average between 2.2 acres to 7.4 acres. 70% of these farms are cultivated by hand hoe, 20% by ox plough, and 10% by tractor. Women are the main part of the agriculture labour force here.... and unlike at home, their homes and farms are very rarely located near one another. It is not uncommon for a farmer to have to walk an hour to his/her farm before starting their day's work.
The BBC conducted a survey with Tanzanians on what they saw as the biggest problems they face living in Tanzania. The problems were ranked as follows:
• Corruption In Government
• Poverty
• Unemployment
• Poor Education
• HIV/AIDS
• Food Scarcity
• Infrastructure - Poor Roads
• Water Scarcity
• Lack of Reliable Electricity
• No/Poor Economic Development
• Drought
• Rising Prices/High Inflation
• Crime/Violence/Lawlessness
• Inefficient Service Delivery by Government
As you can see, it is a pretty sad state of affairs for the country as a whole.
The BBC then asked Tanzanians what they thought
were the biggest problems they face in their local region or district. Their answers were ranked as follows:
• Water Scarcity
• Unemployment
• Infrastructure (Poor Roads)
• Poor Healthcare
• Lack of Reliable Electricity
• Poverty
• Poor Education
• Food Scarcity
• Unclean Environment
• Corruption in Government
• No Clean Water
• HIV/AIDS
• Crime/Violence/Lawlessness
• Drought
• Rising Prices/High Inflation
I am sharing this with you to show you the struggle the Tanzanian farmer faces. If he/sher has the land and gets the seeds to plant his/her crops, the lack of water to help grow the crops is a major factor. If they happen to live in a part of the country where there is a good water source (and those areas do exist), they may not have the roads to get the crops from the farm to the market to sell, leaving the fruits and vegetables to rot. There are so many obstacles for these poor people to overcome. However, with all the obstacles in their way, Tanzanian farmers do grow crops... some do it strictly to feed their families, others do manage to eke out a living from it.
Maize, rice, wheat and cassava are produced for domestic consumption. Maize is by far the
#1 crop in Tanzania. Rice and wheat are the next popular and when it come to cassava, Tanzania is the largest cassava producers in Africa.
Approximately 1.6 million acres of land are used to grow cassava, with an annual production of approximately 1,795,400 tons. Casaava does very well in semi-arid and drought-infected regions. Cassava farmers can earn as much as 170,000 Tanzanian shilling per month ($108.00 CAD).
That is 3 TIMES the minimum wage in Tanzania. I make double that as a volunteer here.
Other staple crops are beans, rice, wheat, sunflowers (for seeds and sunflower oil), chick peas, lentils, pigeon peas, tomatoes, green peppers (no rd or yellow), cuccumbers, carrots, onions, garlic, okra, hot peppers, potatos, sweet potatos, yams, pumpkins, millet, barley, sorghum, sesame seeds, and sugar cane.
Fruits grown here include bananas, passion fruit, papaya, mango, pineapple, water melon, oranges, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, & guavas. The apples we see in the grocery stores here come from South Africa.
What we have noticed is that Tanzanians seem to "follow the leader"... If someone grows tomatoes, their neighbours grow tomatoes. If someone is growing onions, their neighbours grow onions. For the most part, they don't
seem to have the ability to look around them to see what they can grow that no one else is growing in their area. By doing this, they could be the sole supplier of a certain crop and be in high demand. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
The accessibility to land is kind of strange here. First of all, the Tanzanian government owns all the land in Tanzania. The potential farmer will talk to the village elders, or the regional office about obtaining land. If they are given land, it is their's to use and do what they see fit. If there is ever a reason that the government wants it back, they will come in and kick the farmer off the land. If they do not have a need for it, the farmer will continue to work the land as if it is his or hers.
Not any easy life here, to say the least.
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auspicious
Michelle Duer
Great, educational blog! I'm glad to have run across it and look forward to reading more. Thanks~ ;)