However, villagers in Nahanga village, Ruangwa District in Lindi Region, have found new sources to fund their farming activities by selling forest products such as logs and trees for timber production.
The sale of such products has helped Nahanga villagers to purchase a modern tractor worth Sh50m to help them on the farms, shifting from their traditional hand-hoe farming.
Such an effort intends to promote the Kilimo kwanza initiative, introduced by the government more than seven years ago where revenues from forests is used to promote agriculture farming.
Nahanga village is moving one step ahead in implementing the initiative as the villagers use modern equipment in farming, helping them to minimize working hours.
Hamis Mbinga, a ward executive officer in Nahanga, explained that previously the villagers used the hand hoe for farming, which took a lot of time.
He was speaking during Mama Misitu campain in the village. The campaign has gone a long way to help communities manage forests and benefit from the resource. It is a five-year communication programme coordinated by the Tanzania Natural Resources Forum (TNRF) and funded by the Finnish government.
The aim is to institute good governance of Tanzania’s forests and promote sustainable harvesting of resources so that Tanzanians can increasingly benefit from proper management of forests.
“It was not easy to afford hiring tractors because it is very expensive while most of villagers have low income,” the village leader explained.
“Since the village started owning the forest and selling its products they have been enjoying farming activities owing to cheap availability of modern farming equipment which minimize working hours compared with hand hoe farming,” he added.
“As the village recognized the importance of the agriculture sector we created a special ‘tractor project’ which will be used to generate more income to be used to purchase another tractor,” he said.
According to the ward officer, for a villager to get the tractor service they should hire it by paying Sh. 50,000 per acre.
“The money received from the project is invested in the tractor project purposely for purchasing another tractor and make the project sustainable,” he explained
Since the village purchased the tractor most villagers had responding to the project due to the fact that it minimized working hours and provided better results compared to hand-hoe farming.
Contrary to other villages where the owning of forest is funded by other development partners, the process to own the forest in Nahanga was funded by the villagers themselves who contributed Sh. 20m to start with.
“The village plans to add a new tractor very soon in order to continue promoting the Kilimo Kwanza initiative and ensure food security over the area,” the officed remarked.
However, due to the good progress demonstrated by Nahanga village, it has been considered as a role model by the neighbor villages.
Mchichiri is the village located nearby Nahanga village; this is among the villages which were attracted with the good progress done by Nahanga village by using forest product revenues.
Charles Joseph is a Ward Executive Officer at Mchichiri village, his village wanted to manage its own forest so that they can also benefiting from it.
“We decide to move from our village to Nahanga purposely to learn on what they did to benefit from the forest product.
After being educated the village makes efforts to insure that our village also owns the forest and we successful managed to own it.
“Soon after, we started receiving revenue from the forest and immediately we built a village office. Before we had no office because we had no money to build one,” he said.
Apart from promoting Kilimo Kwanza the village has also benefited from forest products as they managed to build a health centre, clas rooms and a village office.
He explained that despite all achievements the village is facing with a number of challenges including clearing of forest by burning the tree, this is done by nearby villagers.
Meanwhile, while Nahanga village is enjoying the fruits of having forest in the village the Sindano village has nothing to be proud of as achievements attained from forest products.
Despite the fact that Sindano village is endowed with abundant natural resources, it lacks mechanisms for utilizing them effectively as they are not aware of how they can benefit from them.
There is no good social service to talk of in Sindano village compared to other villages which have effectively benefited from forest products.
Moris Mrope, chairman of Sindano village, told journalists that they had low understanding of benefits from forests.
The village chairman urged the government and other development partners to join forces and provide education to the villages on how the can use forest to benefits.
Mrope explained that the village failed to have its forest because it needed a lot of money in order to accomplish the process of owning it.
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