AMDT project manager Martin Magallah is reported to have told a gathering to roll out the organisation’s programme in the current year and beyond that up to 500,000 people are going to benefit, that is, the number of people farming the oil seed plant. The project is billed to cover 12 regions as it rolls out more intensely in the planned 2016-2020 part.
The focus of the programme manager’s remarks was to bring the crop to localised value chain by using its different parts for various purposes, a technical need shared by producers of other cash crops like cotton and groundnuts, also oil seeds. It involved setting up industries (factories) for the harvesting of each part of a plant so that it is put to some other industrial use, and it is part of AMDT plans to make sure that various crops are covered in this manner. The purpose is twofold and it usually adds up in strategic terms, bringing up a vibrant industrial sector and creating jobs.
Looking at the breadth of the population the manager is saying it is going to benefit from industrial processing plans for sunflower at the local level, it is impossible for an economic observer not to notice that the number is a bit high. It represents practically all peasants who farm the product or live in regions or parts of districts where it is intensely farmed, in which case if the NGO’s plans and those of the government work out, the peasants produce more sunflower crop and all of it is processed. The catch is on the removal of sunflower imports, in which case peasants will gain.
With the sort of enthusiasm now enveloping the country concerning the project to add value to goods and develop industries, a few rather routine precautions are likely to be forgotten, especially at the strategic level. The issue is how much the country is producing at the moment either in sunflower or other oil seeds, current plans to widen production, feasibility of value addition of most of the crop, and even more contentious still, marketing the product essentially at the local level. This dimension is often not tackled in policy presentation, but raising production.
While it is true that a portion of the local market is now clogged with imported sunflower oil and similar products, the degree of protection of local industry that certain quarters are projecting as the basic condition to implement our industries policy leaves a lot to be desired. They seem to wish that Tanzania look inward for all its processed agro-produce needs, and then seek foreign markets for surpluses.
The point is, how shall we get foreign markets for our goods if we shall have stopped their goods from coming in, by excessive expectations of protection of industries?
That is why policy makers and implementation agencies need to use available facilities for prior analysis and feasibility ascertaining before moving into industry or processing projects.
When it comes to sunflower, it would for instance appear that 0.5m farmers for the crop is not just too many but totally unfeasible to have all that potential produce being processed and obtaining a market. There is plenty of emphasis on building industrial capacity and getting farm produce to processing stage, and in that understandable zeal quite a few glaring mistakes risk being made.
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