Sustaining Livelihoods through Organic Agriculture in Tanzania - UMB

farmers are motivated to convert by incentives of sulphur on credit (for control of
Powdery Mildew Disease in cashews) and the promise of increased incomes, there is
a risk that environmental and social sustainability concerns are sidelined.
On balance, the cashew project did not appear to significantly increase livelihood
security by mitigating risks or by improving their asset base in order to reduce the
susceptibility of smallholders to loss of welfare. In the “trade not aid” approach,
organic agriculture theoretically should build financial assets. However, in the worst
case scenario, fluctuations on the world market and an over-reliance on one product,
makes the agricultural system more vulnerable to shocks. Moreover, an overemphasis
on cash crop production compromises the potential non-economic benefits
of organic agriculture such as ecological stability. The benefits, therefore, of having
links with external institutions, trainings on cashew management and increased yields
are overshadowed by the disadvantages of relying on a single cash crop, volatile
market prices and problematic input supply arrangements.
Organic agriculture was found to bring more livelihood benefits among the local
groups, where the emphasis was first on building human and social capital at the local
level, with certification a secondary concern. These included:
- more varied and nutritious diets of family members due to increased diversity
and higher quality crops;
- increased social and economic power to women accrued through higher
income from sales of vegetables;
- livelihood security through diversification and introduction of new productive
elements into the farming system;
- increased yields due to training and provision of inputs;
- closer cooperation between farmers due to the formation of local groups.
Food security was enhanced by increasing household food availability and raising
children’s nutritional status. Since it relies more on internal natural and resource
resources, the type of organic agriculture embraced by the local groups is more
ecologically, socially and economically sustainable. However, prolonged drought
conditions are still a serious threat and usually have a greater impact on vegetable
production than production of perennial crops such as cashews.
7.4 Lessons
Opportunities for improving system sustainability in organic agriculture of Mkuranga
include improving natural resource management, farmer organisation, livelihood
diversification and participatory market research and development. Institutional
relationships were found to be a key bottleneck in developing organic agriculture
oriented to the needs of smallholders. There is a need to recognise and build upon the
synergies between different stakeholders in the organic food chain, particularly
farmers’ organisations, facilitating agencies, certifiers and exporters / companies.
A collaborative relationship between the two projects with their different orientations,
empowering farmers on the one hand and producing high quality products on the
other, might result in a more effective situation. In order to bring a significant share of
farmers out of poverty the certified market-led model needs to be more aligned to
IFOAM’s basic principles of health, ecology, fairness and care by explicitly
incorporating social and environmental concerns. An organic agriculture that
comprises both a focus on community and commodity is needed in order to secure
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