Green Revolution in Tanzania
Farming the eco-friendly way with nature’s providence
By John Bohemsky
The developed nations and the developing nations are locking horns in Copenhagen and Cancun, trying to gain the maximum out of these international gatherings for their own cause, albeit in the name of climate change and global warming. There have been drafts made and redrafts drawn; yet no concrete steps have been taken thus far to come to a consensus for a world that is secure, prosperous and equitable. The G20 summits and meetings on climate change have all become a platform for a global political arm twisting and spectacle. Is there a solution? Is there a way out?
It is common sense that water is essential and critical source of any agricultural activity. Tanzanians, whether involved in agriculture or not, would agree that water scarcity in Tanzania has reached its peak. According to a recent newspaper article, Tanzania is suffering from what is commonly referred to as water stress. According to the Water and Irrigation ministry, the amount of water available for use per head per year is projected to fall from the current 2,150 cubic meters to 1,950 cubic meters by the year 2015 and further to 1,500 cubic meters by 2025.
Tanzania, and most of East Africa, has a wealth of water resources but many parts of the country are still faced with water shortage, thus disturbing the equation between demand and availability per person. There have been numerous factors noted for the shortage of water in some parts of the country including frequent drought, environmental degradation, contamination of water sources, and of course the high cost of investing in the construction of water infrastructure.
There is an urgent need to educate the general public about the causes of water shortage and finding alternative methods to find sources of water especially in the agriculture sector to come up with a long term plan for water security.
One farm, in the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, is doing exactly that. Acknowledging the fact that the future will face acute water shortages it is finding alternative methods to irrigate its crops by harvesting rainwater. An idea it believes will solve all its water needs, thus coming up with other supportive plans for a long term solution.
Maranye Agro Processing and Social Business Limited started with a mission to produce and sell high quality organic foods and lead in organic farm industry in Tanzania. A concept conceptualized by Ramadhani Juma Chatta and his business partner, Maria Agnes Giraudo, an Italian national. Ramadhan had been involved in many business entrepreneurship before but never in the agriculture sector. It all began when he visited farm lands in Zimbabwe where small scale farms were yielding high growth rate and were following modern and eco-friendly sustainable methods of irrigation. He wanted to do the same in Tanzania. When Maria showed interest in doing business in Tanzania he was quick to pass on the idea of getting into agriculture.
Getting the right land to start their agriculture business didn’t come easy. They had to approach the district commission for procurement. Since the district commission did not have any land for leasing, they were asked to approach the village communities. So they had to go village by village looking for an appropriate piece of land. After days of search they found one in the village of Mlegele in the district of Kisaraew about 50 kilometres from Dar es Salaam. Initially the village provided only 50 acres of land.. While trying to strike a deal with the villagers it was learnt that the village did not have any source of fresh water for almost four years. The only well they had had gone dry and Ramadhan decided to resurrect the well to help the community. Once the bore well was repaired and started pumping water, the villagers were convinced of the social nature of Maranye, and thus an additional 50 acres of land was bought.
The idea behind Maranye is to offer training to the farming community in Tanzania to find a balance with life and mother Earth by harvesting rain water in ways that don’t’ threaten the fragile eco system and creating clean burning biogas that provides an alternative to burning fossil fuel and cutting down trees for firewood. According to Ramadhan farming is not only a business but a way of life. And thus he insists on adopting an eco conscious way of life and wants everyone to adopt this method.
He has been harvesting rain water in his farm and has already reaped the benefits of it in abundance. Since cultivating his land he has already harvested maize, peanuts and other beans successfully without the need to bore a well. His only regret is that he doesn’t have a bigger capacity to store rain water. At the moment he has cultivated more than 76000 pineapples. He considers himself fortunate because the region has been receiving rains on a daily basis recently. He has also experimented with many a different crop to prove that the land is fertile to cultivate any type of crop so long as there is water.
The area where the farm is located does not have any rivers flowing nearby and there is no other source of water. But the area gets good rainfall – almost 1000-1800 millimetres of rain per year and thus an ideal place to harvest rainwater. They dug up two ponds and soon the ponds started to fill up and overflow. That’s when they realized that they needed to dig up bigger ponds and also realized that rainwater harvesting was their solution to solve their water problems. All they need now is to increase their capacity to catch this rain water and also increase the capacity to store them.
Being eco-conscious they want to contribute as much as possible to protect the environment. So they have managed to build a bio-gas production unit and the process is underway. The idea is to teach the villages how to produce bio-gas so they can be part of this eco-friendly process. There are also plans to make charcoal from grass so people can avoid cutting down precious trees.
Ramadhan and his team want to make this as a centre of agriculture learning. They want to involve the community in the production and give them the sense of ownership by sharing with them whatever is being harvested.
“Climate change and global warming is a big problem we are facing in this world and we are very much conscious of it. We want to encourage others in agriculture production by adopting green eco-friendly method and encourage them not to cut down trees but help plant more trees. This is going to be our major tasks”, says Ramadhan.
In a recently organized community development program, on the 16th of December, 2010, Ramadhan and his team distributed each participant a quarter kilogram of green grams as a seed contribution to the community to help them start their own cultivation in a small way. They also used this opportunity to educate the community about rain water harvesting. It seems that the seed of eco-friendly farming is sown and Tanzanians are ready to reap its rewards.
Socio-cultural, ecological, economic and political aspects of small-scale farmers’ contexts and how they affect their choices and decisions about soil and water management. community learn about how they can make the most of their soil and water systems to allow for greater farm sustainability.
There has always been variability in climatic episodes, such as droughts, storms and flooding – and farmers have learnt to cope with this variability. They adapt their practices throughout the season, carefully responding to changes in rainfall and seasons through their selection of crops, crop varieties, planting and other cultural measures, while at the same time changing how they manage their soil and water systems. This so-called “response farming” reflects an approach that seeks resilience and flexibility in farming – and sustainability.
This figure also shows how soil moisture in its turn has a strong influence on crop production. It does so through several routes: adequate soil moisture provides a buffer and ensures water availability to plants even in the absence of rainfall; soil moisture is essential to mobilise transport of nutrients to and through the plants; and adequate soil moisture improves soil chemical processes and aids the availability in particular of the macro-nutrient, nitrogen. The challenge is not only to increase the availability of water to the land – but also to retain the moisture within the soil. As discussed earlier clay and silty soils have a better capacity to retain moisture. Increasing the organic content of the soil further improves this. Cultivation practices can also improve the retention of soil moisture in the soil – for example, mulching (to avoid evaporation from the soil surface) or deep ploughing (moving moisture to deeper layers), though the appropriateness of such practices are location-specific.
organisms makes up a “soil food web” densely packed in the upper layers of the soil (see Figure above). These organisms can be divided into different levels of producers and consumers that interact and convert energy and nutrients between themselves, as well as in association with plants’ roots. Although much about soil ecosystems is still unknown, what we do know is that soil organisms modify the soil environment, affecting its physical, chemical and biological properties and processes. It is the soil organisms that interact with minerals and organic matter, helping to create soil structure and therefore affecting water infiltration, drainage and holding capacity. For example, earthworms create tunnels and burrows throughout the soil. Activities in the soil determine plants’ access to nutrients through decomposition of rocks, organic matter, animals and micro-organisms. Roots absorb these minerals if they are readily available in soil solution
Whether we realise it or not, soil affects each of us in our everyday lives. Besides being fundamental to the production of our food and other agricultural products, the soil performs a wide range of functions that go beyond farming. It regulates water, sustains plant and animal life, recycles organic wastes, recycles nutrients, stores carbon, filters out pollutants, and serves as a physical support for structures. For farmers, understanding the functioning of the soils on their farms - and how to make the best use of the water available - form the base of their livelihoods.
Self identities define how people interact for purpose of managing the natural environment. As a result different societies have different conceptions in managing environmental systems and may vary within and between societies. Every human being is affected by social and biophysical environment in which they live. The process of managing it can be facilitated by understanding both the people involved and the processes leading to such identities. At the same time, the idea of inter generational transmission of the best environmental management attitudes as part of education should be encouraged.
There is a close link between self identity with environment and ones actions on the environment.
Human beings have been interacting with nature and changing the natural landscape for a long time. Realizing that this state of affairs can’t continue indefinitely, different theories have been put forward to explain why different people see, behave and have contributed differently to this change as a step towards understanding the individual perception as part of environmental management.
We have shown our commitment to set aside money for agricultural sector development. Along the way we have come across such a big set back