WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-11-29 Time: 13:00:02 Posted By: News Poster
By Bernard Lugongo
The country’s agricultural sector will still be in a dilemma should the government continue to implement a temporary ban on food crop exportation.
The government has stuck to its guns on the policy because it believes that it is crucial to safeguard food security in the region.
But local experts on agriculture and economics have been challenging the authorities on the policy. They want the government to let farmers sell their agricultural produce across the borders to widen the market and develop the sector.
“These are temporary bans and the government has to implement them to guarantee food security,” said David Biswalo, an assistant director of Plans and Budget in the ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Co-operatives.
Speaking during a workshop for agricultural and economic stakeholders in Dar es Salaam recently, Mr Biswalo argued that the government imposed the ban due to the food situation in the country.
His statement follows a recent move where farmers were restricted from selling their harvests to neighboring countries. The country suspended food exports from January last year to stabilise domestic prices following drought and a rise in food prices in the world market.
But, by October this year, the country had temporarily lifted a ban on food exports after harvest figures showed farmers would record a surplus of grain production this year as the government’s farm subsidies start to pay off.
Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda argued that easing restrictions involved the commercial export of maize grain and flour.
In the stakeholders’ workshop, some analysts said instead of stopping exportation, the government should enable farmers to produce in abundance to maintain food security in the region.
They were speaking at the workshop on agriculture and growth in Tanzania that was organized by the International Gross Centre (IGC) in collaboration with the Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF).
Monica Hangi, a researcher with ESRF, said the country imposed bans so as to discourage selling of foodstuff outside its boundaries, but the move had very minimal effect in controlling food security conditions.
“In actual sense these exchanges between our country and others should be encouraged,” Ms Hangi stressed.
She argued that cross-border trade on agricultural products had improved the conditions of food production and food availability and rural development in the countries involved.
Among other factors, she noted, food insecurity in the country resulted from lack of knowledge of the market, low production, environmental degradation, high dependency on rain, poor storage and infrastructural problems.
Others were inappropriate agricultural and trade policies, insufficient efforts to develop the sector, diseases among the farmers and high population growth against food production.
Dr Vicent Levalo, an economic lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam, also argued that to lock farmers out of the international market would discourage the growth of the sector.
He argued that the policy of banning food crop exportation was improper because exportation guaranteed farmers with a market for their produce.
“Guaranteeing market for agricultural produce will entice many people to participate in the sector as they find it profitable, hence developing the sector,” he noted.
“You lock farmers from the market yet you expect them to get a better life from farming, how will it achieved?” he asked.
Mr Osmund Ndomba of the Tropical Pesticides Research Institute said the issue of food security should consider both availability and accessibility.
“Ban on exportation cannot be the right way of dealing with food insecurity if the crops preserved don’t reach hungry people in the country,” he argued.
Presenting his paper on spatial dispersion and transaction costs in commodities in Tanzania, Mr Bjorn Campenhout said in order to escape poverty, linkages to market centres are very important.
“Market integration is the most effective way to increase price elasticity of products, typically produced by the poor,” he said.
The Kilimo Kwanza initiative should be implemented with focus on increasing the productivity of small-scale farmers by providing them with advanced inputs, he argued.
For his part, Mr Razack Lokina, an economics lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam, noted that there was little or no increase of modern farm technologies among smallholders between the year 2002 and 2008.
But he argued that at the current prices of crop fertilizers it is not profitable for the average farmer to apply fertilizer to maize or beans.
The agricultural sector in the country serves as the major source of food, with an employment capacity of approximately 74 per cent of the entire population of around 40.7 million.
The sector is mainly dominated by smallholder farmers and farm sizes range between 0.9 to 3.2 hectares.
By the year 2008, agricultural economic activities grew by about five per cent, as opposed to four per cent in the previous year.
In that period, production of the main food crop increased by 7.6 per cent for maize, and for cash crops particularly cotton increased by 53.7 per cent.
Generally, non-traditional exports such as gold had contributed largely to the external trade sector.
Imports of capital and intermediate goods increased, but imports of foodstuff decreased in the year 2008.
Considering all tradable products in the region, the country’s share of Intra East African Community imports declined by 13.4 per cent in the year 2007 and further during the following year.
Tanzania’s agricultural imports from Kenya are approximately six times higher than its exports to the same country.
From Tanzania, Kenya imports maize, beans, fish, rice, root crops, sugar, fruits and vegetables, while Tanzania imports from its northern neighbour wheat flour and sugar.
Agricultural trade between Uganda and Tanzania is low compared to trade between Tanzania and Kenya, Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Malawi.
Main staple foods traded between Tanzania and Uganda are rice, beans and bananas.
From Tanzania, Uganda imports rice and beans while from Uganda, Tanzania imports mainly rice.
Original date published: 29 November 2010
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201011291157.html?viewall=1