Home 
Business Digest
Business Digest
Business Digest
That is not bad for small scale farmer. Kitomari has done it by setting up fish ponds, rearing cattle and goats, which gives him organic manure and growing vegetables.
Much has been said about small scale farmers as not benefiting much from their produce due to lack of access to the market and little knowledge of the modern diversity agricultural system.
African countries including Tanzania, have been struggling to boost agriculture in order to help the majority of farmers in their respective countries move out from poverty.
During the Maputo Declaration in 2003, it was agreed that African countries should contribute 10% of their budget allocation on agriculture.
This in turn would help African countries meet the required food security and lift farmers’ incomes.
Ten years on however, the majority of African governments have not kept their word.
Kitomari said he is able to sell vegetables cultivated by using the technology of using a tunnel filtered system that filters dish water and soap water into clean water.
He then uses this for gardening, an idea he was taught by a team from the Global Service Corps (GSC) an international nonprofit organization.
The Tanzania Domestic Biogas has also trained him on how to use the cow dung he obtains from his four cattle and turn it into biogas that he now enjoys for his household cooking.
This saves both the environment and money.
“Firewood cooking was very expensive for us and we used to cut a lot of trees which could later be dried and used for cooking but with the new technology of biogas am assured of the energy and I have been able to conserve my surrounding” Kitomari said.
GSC has also helped to train him on how best to use the limited space and resources through preparation of organic manure that is later used to build up a sustainable way of growing vegetables and improving the family’s diets while at the same time increasing his income.
Kitomari said he usually makes a profit of $109 (Tsh180,000) for selling a ton of organic manure.
His customers include the Selian Agriculture Research Institute in Arusha, where he is able to make more than $1000 (Tsh1,638,490) every four months.
“Organic manure can take a month to be generated and is able to be used for more than five years without losing its fertility,” Kitomari said.
He said many farmers now prefer this to acidic fertilizers.
The Tanzania Biogas Domestic Program, Heifer International and Global Service Corps, including different development partners have been able to conduct community diversity agriculture trainings to villagers in the rural areas of Tanzania.
Kitomari said pond water is also used to water his home grown vegetable gardens.
This is inspite of the training he got from Global Service Corps (GSC) on how to build a hafir, water storage trench lined with plastic that is able to collect enough rain water to maintain a garden or sustain livestock throughout the dry season.
He said both the cow and goats were given to him by Heifer International free of charge on the condition that he should later distribute the first siblings to other farmers in Namala village.
“What is important is to put whatever training you obtain into practice and these trainings are often given to us at no costs,” Kitomari said.
He said there were no other benefits attached to these training stints apart from the knowledge passed over.
He said farmers have not been able to change their ways of cultivation due to lack of knowledge of diversity system of agriculture.
He describes it as more beneficial than the seasonal way of farming.
“Farmers around this village come here often to admire my zero-tillage farming practice and are moved to see how productive my farm is,” Kitomari said.
He said every farmer who visits his farm have promised to opt for diversity agriculture and the zero-tillage system of farming.
He said however, the fact that most of these lessons from these nonprofit international organizations are offered without financial benefits attached, many rural farmers tend to shy away, only to realize its benefit as time progress.
The benefits of participating in agriculture trainings have enabled Kitomari to own his own biogas plant for his household use while at the same increasing his produce resulting from the zero tillage farming practice.
Zero-tillage which requires that farmers should plant their seeds directly to untilled soil in the field that has retained the previous crop residues, is the best way of retaining the soil nutrients that have been washed away through soil erosion.
“With the level of education that I have been able to obtain from different nonprofit agriculture organizations, while at the same time putting those lessons into practice, different organizations and research centres hire me as a mentor in their different agriculture projects where am paid heavily,” Kitomari said.
He said his diversification practices enable him get enough produce to feed his family and generate income.
In a joint statement last week,the UN environment agency (UNEP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) agreed that supporting smallholder farmers to play a greater role in food production and natural resource stewardship, is one of the quickest ways to lift over one billion people out of poverty and sustainably nourish a growing world population.
Most of the 1.4 billion people living on under $1.25 a day live in rural areas and depend largely on agriculture for their livelihoods, while an estimated 2.5 billion people are involved in full- or part-time smallholder agriculture.
These smallholders manage approximately 500 million small farms and provide over 80% of the food consumed in large parts of the developing world, particularly Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, thus contributing to food security and poverty reduction.
A previous study showed that a one-per-cent increase in agricultural per-capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reduced the poverty gap five times more than a one-per-cent increase in GDP.
“Two decades of underinvestment in agriculture, growing competition for land and water, rising fuel and fertilizer prices, and climate change have left smallholders less able to escape poverty,” said Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director.
No comments:
Post a Comment