We need to take more agricultural extension services in rural areas

But most people living in rural areas remain extremely poor, and improvements in the overall level of human development have been only marginal.

Tanzania ranked 151 out of 182 countries in the 2015 United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index.

The World Bank ranks it 134th out of 185 countries for business environment and 135th out of 212 countries for government effectiveness.

Agriculture meets 90 per cent of food needs, but productivity is low, there is a lack of primary processing, and market access is weak.

The economy largely depends on agriculture, which accounts for about one quarter of GDP, provides 85 per cent of exports and employs about three quarters of the workforce. About 80 per cent of production comes from subsistence farmers relying on hand hoe and rain fed agriculture.

To date, production gains have been achieved by expanding the area cultivated rather than by yield increases, and this has driven deforestation and land degradation. Smallholder agriculture is labour-intensive,

with little application of modern technologies and inputs, and is highly vulnerable to weather shocks. Agriculture is a sector where significant productivity achievements can be made, while making production climate-resilient. The country imports.

significant volumes of cereals and pulses, which could be produced nationally.

The country is highly committed to sustainably increasing agricultural production to meet the growing demand for food, industrial raw materials, and foreign currency earnings.

To make this happen, the prime tool in achieving agricultural development, poverty reduction, and food security is bringing agricultural extension services to the people in rural areas.

Apart from responding to the growing demand of farmers and semi-pastoralists, there is a need of dynamic and proactive extension system to elevate the level of the national economic growth. Rigorous and vibrant extension system is also a fundamental policy instrument for necessary attitudinal changes and creating demands on national agricultural extension programmes.

Beyond changing the attitude of people, the agricultural extension can play a significant role in replacing traditional farming mechanisms by modern and advantageous systems to raise the volume of production and productivity of farmers.

Though development experts are crucial in achieving agricultural development, poverty reduction, and food security, Tanzania has made great efforts to transform the agricultural sector mainly through strengthening its extension services as part of the general agriculture policy reform.

If we look back on the status of the agriculture sector development in the past, considerable efforts were made to improve the extension system of the country, however the system was not bringing the desired results.

Thus, it has significant value to prepare an extension strategy for agricultural development and to scale up the future direction of the extension services.

Since research-based agricultural extension services were began to be provided to the surrounding farming communities by universities.

The country has implemented several agricultural extension systems at different times aimed at supporting rural communities. Under Tanzania's current agriculture development-led industrialisation strategy, the extension system remains a critical tool.

The government firmly believes that an effective and efficient extension system plays an important role to transform smallholder subsistence agriculture to commercial agricultural production system.

This will be realised through facilitating the adoption and utilisation of yield- and quality-increasing agricultural technologies.

In fact, the extension system inTanzania has great potential to help farmers throughout the country.

Youths indeed constitute Africa’s greatest resource

IN recent decades, cities have become havens for young people. The exodus from the country to the city has been a recurring phenomenon in the past, especially in times of poor economic development.

Today, these are places where youth unemployment has particularly increased.

Tanzania is already the 10th largest youth population. 47 per cent of the population is under 15
and the ̳youth boom is expected in the next decade.

We need to prepare now for this shift. Young people are burdened by three key challenges in their lives - staying healthy, achieving a sustainable income, and participating. We must learn now to include and engage young people in development and decision making.

Youth employment situation remains one of the key challenges in Tanzania. Unemployment rate among youth -15 and 34 years old- was 13.4 per cent; females stand at 14.3 per cent and amongst males were 12.3 per cent.

Urban areas are hardest hit with unemployment rate, reaching 22.3 per cent as against 7.1 per cent in the rural areas.

Every year it is estimated that over 800,000 young men and women enter the labour market. These include school and college graduates and people who have migrated from rural areas to urban areas.

It is estimated that by 2030 the labour force will have more than doubled, reaching around 50 million.

This therefore underscores the importance of creating a conductive environment for business to flourish so that more jobs are created for people over time.

Promote the goal of decent and productive employment for youth should be a national priority.

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s 2017 Forum Report Africa at a Tipping Point finds the continent still making progress, but faced with a real risk of falling back.

The future will depend, more than anything else, on Africa’s ability to harness the energy and meet the expectations of its young people.

Today, 60 per cent of the continent population is already under 25 years of age. By 2050, Africa will be home to 452 million people under the age of 25.

Their drive, ambition and potential provide African countries with an extraordinary asset. But this demographic dividend is at risk of being squandered.

Too many young Africans feel devoid of economic prospects and robbed of any say on the future of their own continent.

Young people have spent more years in school but few have been effectively equipped with the skills the economy needs.

Despite having some of the most educated populations, with gross enrolment ratios in tertiary education over 30 per cent, Egypt and Tunisia also have some of the highest youth unemployment rates on the continent, greater than 30 per cent.

Terrorism has become a well-organised multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise with growing control over the drugs trade, people trafficking and other parts of the black market.

The jobs, status, income and feeling of “belonging” it seemingly offers to young people cut off from the mainstream economy may be more attractive that the ideology itself.

Mo Ibrahim, Chair of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, said: “The energy and ambition of Africa’s young people is our greatest resource and best hope for strengthening our continent’s progress.