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Business Digest
Monday, 24 June 2013 10:16
Kenan Kalagho, EAST AFRICAN BUSINESS WEEK, KAMPALA, UGANDA
ARUSHA, TANZANIA - Zadock Kitomari, a small scale farmer at
Namala village in Meru district in Arusha, says by diversifying his
agriculture practices, he has been able to make an average profit of
between $305 (Tsh500,000) and $366 (Tsh600,000) a month.
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.
(Zadock Kitomari and his diversity agriculture that helps him also to generate bio gas for his household, Photo By Kenan Kalagho)
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.
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