Economy-Tanzania - The government should strive to build trust with private sector and small-scale farmers and extend training on the use of fertilizers and new seeds to help bring about agricultural transformation and reduce poverty. Mr Dan Glickman, the co-chair of the Chicago Council's Global Agricultural Development Initiative, said training of agro-dealers should be prioritised so that they may become information centres and effectively serve farmers. Mr Glickman, the former agriculture Secretary in Bill Clinton's administration, was speaking during an interview after concluding his three-day fact-finding visit on food security projects hosted by the Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa.

He was accompanied by his co-chair and former executive director of World Food Programme (WFP), Ms Catherine Bertini.The warehouse receipt system, which allows a farmer to deposit his crops in a warehouse and use the receipt to borrow from financial institutions, according to Mr Glickman, would bring about higher returns to farmers and improve food security.

"But the most important issue is building trust between the government and small farmers....people should see the government as a friend and that is the important thing the government should do," said Mr Glickman.

For her part, Ms Bertini, who pioneered the use of food aid to empower women during her tenure at the WFP, said women do a lot of farming and it was important to make sure they participated in all levels of decision-making.

After they had toured Morogoro Region where they visited various projects supported by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra), the delegation had a discussion with officials from the ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives, who were led by the permanent secretary, Mr Mohamed Muya.

Briefing the delegations on the agricultural gains the country had achieved, Mr Muya said the government had increased its budget for agriculture to over 7.6 per cent of the total budget, but agriculture value chain, whereby all the government ministries aim at achieving green revolution, was a priority although challenges such power cuts hindered growth of the sector.He said farming should be a private enterprise and the government was exploring ways through which the private sector could be fully involved.

"It is important to encourage the use of modern technology in farming to promote productivity so as to increase yields of crops per acre......we know that small scale-farmers needed more inputs but the challenge is how to make them available," Mr Muya said.According to him, the country has over 40 million hectares of arable land but only 20 per cent of the land is currently in use because small-scale farmers cultivated only for subsistence using a hand-hoe."Farmers can only manage with a hand-hoe, but the use of oxen and mechanical power has helped to increased the cultivated land," he said.

Public investment in agriculture wasn't conducive, the PS and his team briefed, and there were hindrances for agriculture investors to access land and financial institutions. There were no provision finances for agriculture investment, however, plans were underway to establish agricultural bank, he added.Ms Bertini and Mr Glickman said they would use their experiences from Tanzania to advise the US government on future agricultural policies in developing countries.

Agra, which is chaired by the former UN secretary general, Mr Kofi Annan, is an African-based organisation with offices in Nairobi, Kenya and Accra, Ghana.

Since 2007, the organisation has invested in several projects through four inter-linked programmes of seeds, soil health, markets and policies. To date, the programmes have supported 29 projects with a total investment of $12 million. The 2011 planned investment was set at $7.6 million, taking the Agra's total investment at about $20 million.

As for policy, Agra increases the capacity of African governments and institutions to develop evidence-based agricultural policies that serve the smallholder farmers and are geared to address each country's circumstances.

Erick Kabendera

The Citizen/24/03/2011