cases from tanzania - Sustainet

4 Agricultural policy in Kenya and Tanzania
Sustainable agriculture projects work through and with organized farmer groups. Such an
approach requires not only technical agricultural advice and inputs, but also includes mobilization,
awareness building, strengthening of local capacities though training and leadership
development, gender and youth development, etc. Farmer unions and cooperative societies
are essential for strengthening local leadership capacities, especially among small-scale farmers
who are often neglected and poorly represented among decision makers.
Such approaches can bear fruit. For example in Baraka village (page 38), the farmer groups
selected a representative to lobby on their behalf with the local member of parliament to
improve the village road. There was not enough money for a tarmac road, but a laterite
(“murram”) road is passable now throughout the year.
Policy changes needed Farmer organizations play a key role in empowering farmers and
in negotiating with government on their members’ behalf for services and support. Farmer
organizations are key partners with the government in achieving national targets and ensuring
that development activities fulfil local needs. The government recognizes this, so it is now
time to put its admirable intentions into practice.
Farmers’ representatives should become members of district constituency development
committees, and the bodies governing local authority transfer funds and the district roads
funds. This would ensure that the government agencies and private providers who act on
their behalf deliver services in a way that is decentralized, customer-oriented way, cost-effective
and based on transparent decision making.
The demise of institutions such as the Kenya Grain Growers Cooperative Union has left a
gap in the supply of inputs to farmers, which the private sector has failed to fill. Ways must
be found to fill these gaps.
Access to credit and saving in Kenya
Cases: All in Kenya
The problem Small-scale farmers have little capital to invest because they are able to save
so little. Most grow only a few cash crops and yields are generally low, so they bring in little
cash. Farmers have to pay for food they cannot grow themselves, clothes, household items,
school fees and so on, so have little money left over. Many are continually in debt. They
find it difficult to get credit at reasonable rates for both long-term land improvement and
to finance seasonal needs such as seeds and other inputs. Credit for agricultural marketing
collapsed after the removal of subsidies in both Tanzania and Kenya. Rural and small-town
produce processors, transporters and input-supply businesses also need credit for long-term
investment and working capital.
Banks and agricultural credit organizations are weak or non-existent. They do not encourage
lending to the small-scale agricultural sector, and rarely go beyond provincial towns. Public
sector development banks, established to provide credit for such key sectors as agriculture
and industry, have in most instances failed; they served commercial and cash-crop farmers
rather than smallholders. As a result, few formal mechanisms mobilize savings or provide
credit and other bank services in villages and small towns.
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