How Tanzania can realise climate-smart agriculture

Dar es Salaam. As the decisive COP28 climate summit continues in Dubai, stakeholders have offered ways Tanzania can achieve Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA).

CSA, or climate resilient agriculture, is an integrated approach to managing land to help adapt agricultural methods, livestock, and crops to the effects of climate change and, where possible, counteract it by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture while taking into account the growing world population to ensure food security.

The focus is not simply on carbon farming or sustainable agriculture but also on increasing agricultural productivity.

The Minister of State in the Vice President’s Office (Union and Environment), Dr Selemani Jafo, said, after the end of the Africa Climate Summit (the Nairobi Summit 2023), that African countries, including Tanzania, will give a common position to COP28 on how they are going to implement CSA.

Dr Jafo said the countries have given priority to agriculture because climate change has mostly affected the crucial sector and caused food shortages.

He noted: “The rains are not enough, and most farmers depend on rain for agriculture, so we will need technology to move away from traditional farming.”

Showing the gap during Africa’s Food Systems Forum Summit’s (AGRF 2023), Tanzania President Samia Suluhu Hassan stressed that despite climate challenges, it was a shame that African countries complain about food shortages when 65 percent of arable land suitable for agriculture is on the continent.

Climate change expert Dr Fadhel Kaboub said, “Africa has enough resources to attain food sovereignty if it invests in agriculture to meet local needs and stops producing to meet others’ standards, which, after some time, makes our land less productive.”

“We use a lot of artificial fertiliser and drugs, which leave our land barren. We need CSA to get rid of this,” said Dr Kboub, who is a professor of economics at Denison University in South Africa.

He was speaking during an online media café organised by the Media for Environment, Science, Health, and Agriculture (MESHA) and the International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC) Eastern and Southern Africa office.

How CSA can be implemented

Agriculture stakeholder Audax Rukonge said CSA covers the whole concept of agriculture, whether farming, fishing, or animal keeping, and when doing agricultural processing activities, one must think about how much he or she is going to contribute to the increase or decrease in climate change causes.

Mr Rukonge then noted: “As a country, we need to focus on long-term agriculture infrastructure, invest in technology, and conduct research to mitigate the effects.”

Agriculture and digital transformation expert from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Tanzania, Mr Mponda Malonzo, said CSA has three pillars that aim to increase productivity, enhance resilience, and reduce emissions.

Mr Malonzo, who formally was the minister of agriculture and meteorologist, said in periods of little rain or heavy rains, dry spells, or short rain seasons, CSA works well. “This is because the method covers the value chain of a product’s production. I mean from seed selection, land and fertilisers used to harvest, and product use,” he said.

A farmer, Lucas Malembo, who uses CSA in farming, said the CSA approach has helped him increase productivity by up to ten times compared with modern farming methods.

“This method only needs a small area for big results. The method uses less water; for example, to get one kilogramme of tomato, you need only 70 litres of water, compared with at least 400 litres. Also, plant disease management is easy, and sometimes plants get no diseases,” he said, adding that the use of organic fertiliser is 75 percent less than the other farming method.

Mr Malembo further said that the method helps in avoiding post-harvest losses because farmers will harvest their product on request from the buyer. “I only sell when someone requests my product; I use a digital platform to connect with my buyers,” he said.

According to him, research shows farmers’ post-harvest losses are 30 to 40 percent. He added that CSA was also suitable for urban farming as it requires a small area and sometimes vertical agriculture.

Mr Malembo, who is also the managing director of Malembo Farms, said: “In comparison with traditional farming, the initial cost might be higher, but the operation cost is lower as the installed technology can last for seven or more years, while the other methods initial costs can be lower, but the operation cost is higher.”

The managing director of an agriculture tech company, Altitude X, Ms Rose Funja, said Tanzania should apply the concept of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) into her CSA initiatives, which she believes can enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the overall CSA strategy.

“DPI involves leveraging digital technologies to provide foundational services and data that can be accessed by the public, businesses, and government entities. And it composes digital weather and climate information and precision agriculture technologies,” she said.

Other services she mentions are digital extension services, financial inclusion, market information systems, digital soil health assessment, blockchain for supply chain transparency, data analytics for decision-making, cybersecurity measures, and collaboration with tech innovators.

What the government is doing

The director of crop development in the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Nyasebwa Chimagu, outlined five key issues, saying that the ministry understands the importance of the CSA and was taking it as a climate change issue that resulted from human activities.

He mentioned research, irrigation, water conservation, dealing with pests and diseases, and information sharing.

“The ministry has devoted itself to seed research that is climate resilient; examples are sunflowers, “Record” seeds, and maize “T105” that have been proven to work,” he said, noting that in the current budget, the government has set aside Sh80 billion for agriculture research.

The director further noted that, due to the little rain in recent years, the government was educating farmers on how to conserve water during the rainy seasons and, in another area, repairing and building irrigation infrastructure.

“In the three budgets, the government set Sh361 for irrigation so that we can build the long-term irrigation infrastructure for the country, as we know we are rich with groundwater bodies,” said Mr Chimagu.

Regarding pests and diseases, he mentioned the Tanzania Plant Health and Pesticides Authority (TPHPA), which he said has the capacity to give out information and forecasts that deal with annoying insects and diseases.

Mr Chimagu also spoke of supporting and improving traditional ways of dealing with pests and diseases, giving the example of the neem tree, which is toxic to some pets.

Reaching farmers

Mr Malembo who has his farm in Dar es Salaam, says he has established himself and is well connected with experts and buyers. “But the problem is for other farmers; most are not easy to reach,” he said.

On that point, Mr Malonzo said FAO and the Ministry of Agriculture have come out with guidelines for CSA, which are available online. They have also reached every district in Tanzania to provide education to farmers and extension officers.

“Because the technology also needs digital information, the guidelines suggest the use of solar power in areas with no electricity access,” he said.

In disseminating information, the director said they have started with TPHPA and extension officers who are connected with farmers who receive information through their mobile phones through text messages.