Call to make agriculture attractive for young people |06 July 2023
Minister Bashe (right) stresses a point while addressing a symposium preceding the 53rd Plenary Assembly Session in Arusha, Tanzania on July 3, 2023 while (from left) the Speaker of the Parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania, Dr. Tulia Ackson; the
The 53rd Plenary Assembly Session of the Southern African Development Community Parliamentary Forum (SADC PF) began on Monday, in Arusha, Tanzania, with calls for SADC member states to invest in agriculture and to make the sector attractive for the SADC region’s largely youthful population.
Twelve out of the 15-member national parliaments of the SADC PF are attending the plenary, scheduled from July 2 to 8, 2023 under the theme: ‘Modernising Agriculture to Address Food Insecurity and Youth Unemployment in the SADC Region: Role of the Parliaments’.
The United Republic of Tanzania’s Minister for Agriculture, Honourable Hussein Bashe, got proceedings under way with a thought-provoking presentation during a symposium immediately preceding the plenary on July 3, 2023.
Calling on SADC lawmakers to make agriculture attractive to young people, Bashe argued that strengthening youth and women involvement in agriculture under Building a Better Tomorrow (BBT) agribusiness initiative would create employment for about three million youth in the United Republic of Tanzania alone by 2025.
The BBT Programme focuses on solving challenges faced by the youth including access to land, technology, capital, skills and market.
“As we strive to make agriculture sexy and attractive to the youth, labour saving technologies (mechanisation and digitalisation) are imperative,” the minister said.
He said while Africa has around 1.12 billion hectares of agricultural land used for the cultivation of crops and the production of animals, the continent has 65% of world’s remaining uncultivated arable land and has the potential to produce enough food to feed itself and contribute to feeding 9.7 billion by 2050.
“Ironically more than 283 million Africans go to bed hungry every day. We have no choice, as time is not on our side. The population of Africa will rise to two billion by 2050, and they must be fed. We must take decisive actions now to secure their food supplies,” he said.
Bashe said the United Republic of Tanzania had made great strides in enhancing agriculture productivity but there is room for improvement.
He said the United Republic of Tanzania has a total of 12 million households and approximately 7.8 million households (65%) are farmers.
Most government efforts focus on enticing the growing youth population which represents energetic labour force in the sector which registered growth of 3.9% in 2021.
According to the minister, the government used several strategies to address the challenge of low sector performance.
He said the agriculture budget was increased from 294.16 billion shillings in 2021/22 to 970.7 billion shillings in 2023/24 while the government also invested in research 2021/22 and seed development and multiplication.
“The government provided farmers with access to modern technology and equipment to help improve agricultural productivity and efficiency. This included irrigation systems, mechanical tools such as tractors and harvesters and so on, making the sector enticing to more youths to take up farming,” he said.
Investing in infrastructure, such as roads, storage facilities, and processing plants, improved the efficiency and effectiveness of the agricultural sector, he added.
The minister also noted that the government of the United Republic of Tanzania had launched the ‘Kilimo Bashara’ Agenda 10/30, which aims at transforming agriculture into a business.
Agenda 10/30 is aimed at the agriculture sector (crop sub-sector) dominated by small-scale farmers, to grow by 10% by 2030.
“To achieve this target, several catalytic interventions have been devised including, rallying public and private sectors to invest in agriculture and increasing budgetary allocations,” said Bashe.
Other strategies to grow the agriculture sector in the United Republic of Tanzania include undertaking legal, policies and institutional reforms to increase performance and efficiency in the segment.
The minister said to engage innovative youthful minds, the Tanzanian government promotes and invests in value-added products: Encouraging the development of value-added agricultural products, such as processed foods and beverages, to increase the value of crops and improve the overall competitiveness of the sector.
There were support to small-scale farmers through initiatives like microloans and market access programmes; promotion and institutionalisation of block farming models from 110 to 10,000 block farms by 2030, he said.
Bashe said the implementation of the horticulture development strategy to attain export value of US $2 billion would help to expand the export markets from the current US $1.2 billion to US $5 billion by 2030 and would also be useful in enticing jobless youths into taking up farming as an occupation.
The minister highlighted the opportunities for agriculture modernisation in the United Republic of Tanzania in particular and in Africa in general to reduce dependence on the West for food.
These included vast underutilised arable land with increasing populations that demand food commercially.
He highlighted that the Intra and Inter Africa trade agreement such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) provide an expanded market for produce while also making raw materials for agro industries such as minerals for fertilisers, food for human and animal feed more accessible.
“There is capacity for Africa to restructure global financing in agriculture given the available potential for technology to be a key driver of productivity growth,” he said.
The minister pointed out that land reform and land administration programmes would continue to be among the many agendas in the transformational journey – the need for appropriate policies and laws.
According to Bashe, by improving food systems and agribusinesses, countries would promote agricultural trade in the East Africa Community, SADC, the African Union (AU) and globally, although emerging challenges such as climate resilience to drought, floods and salinization must be addressed appropriately.
He told the lawmakers that the future of the world is agribusiness with a need to feed the 2.4 billion population now and 9.7 billion by 2050.
“With Africa’s urban food markets set to attain a total value of more than US $400 billion and the food system business reaching US $1 trillion by 2030, there is scope for youth participation in agriculture, with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) also projecting that 60% more food needs to be produced to feed the world by 2050,” said the minister.
He highlighted that Africa’s food demand continues to outstrip domestic supply by
about 20% with an average of import bill of US $80 billion growing at 6% annually, but unpredicted economic crisis precipitated by natural calamities and inter-national conflict such as the Ukraine-Russia war, Covid-19 may continue to happen from time to time, hence Africa must improve food independence and security.
He recommended that to redress the existing challenges, there is need to sustain regional integration as provided for in various ratified documents under AU, SADC and other bodies.
“There is need to enhance intra-African trade considering the comparative and competitive advantages and to establish robust financing mechanisms through local and international organisations to support ongoing individual national initiatives, programmes, projects and innovations,” he said.
Parliamentarians must continue to advocate for harmonisation, ratification, domestication and implementation of SADC Protocols, treaties and other decisions at member state governments to ensure familiarisation of Parliamentarians with the objectives, priorities and decisions of SADC and other national, regional and international priorities, programmes and projects for agriculture sector development, he said.
Bashe called for sustained Public Private Partnership (PPP) to attract more investment into the agricultural sector and proper planning to allocate resources for sustainable growth of the sector by linking the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors.
The plenary is the SADC PF’s apex decision-making body. It meets twice a year. This is the fourth time that the Parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania is hosting the SADC Parliamentary Forum Plenary Assembly Session, according to SADC PF secretary general, Boemo Sekgoma.
The National Assembly of Seychelles is being represented at the plenary by a delegation of three members of Parliament led by Honourable Roger Mancienne, Speaker of the National Assembly and President of the SADC Parliamentary Forum.
From Moses Magadza in Arusha, Tanzania