Women: The ignored 60 per cent of farming labour force

Despite this huge contribution, they often have no control over farm income or agricultural resources such as seeds, fertilizer and even the land.

Efforts to reduce hunger and malnutrition and to help smallholder farming families improve their lives cannot succeed without addressing the role of women in agriculture.

When women farmers are meaningfully included in agricultural development opportunities, not only do farms become more productive but adoption of new technologies increases and overall family health improves.

Evidence shows that if women farmers across the developing world had the same access as men do to resources such as land, improved seed varieties, new technologies and better farming practices, yields could increase by as much as 30 per cent per household and countries could see an increase of 2.5 to 4 per cent in agricultural output.

Women have also been shown to be more likely than men to reinvest income in the health of children and other family members and in a more varied and nutritious family diet.

Apart from that, the problem of insufficient regulatory and legal enforcement to nab and punish fake input traders has been cited as one of the challenges that has paved a loophole for fake traders importing fake agriculture inputs including seeds, fertilizers and insecticides to continue with the illicit practice in the country.

Speaking with The Guardian in an exclusive interview recently in Moshi at the ‘Farmer-to-Farmer Tanzania Small Farmers Conference’ that was organised by the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) that attracts agriculture stakeholders from different regions of Tanzania, one of the small farmer from Iringa, Peter Nzalawahe said fake agriculture inputs including seeds have been mushrooming in the Tanzanian market.

“To fight the importation of fake seeds and other agriculture inputs by multinational companies, more production is needed to satisfy our customers,” he explained.

According to him, other challenges they face include lack of funds for agriculture; “it is very difficult for the small famer to get loans from financial institutions due to the difficult conditions set by banks and others,” he said.

Nzalawahe further explained that due to lack of sufficient funds that would otherwise enable researchers to produce more quality improved seeds, Tanzania has only been producing about 30 per cent of its seeds and imports the remaining 70 per cent.

“Unless policy makers and scientists work together to solve seed trading, fake seed trading will remain a major challenge in the country,” he warned.

“Fake seeds or agricultural inputs packed and sold by fake traders to small holder farmers in Tanzania will only cease if the government takes strong measures against these fake traders,” he added.

Speaking during the opening of the conference that was themed ‘Farming is Business’and which attracted more than 80 delegates from Arusha, Tanga, Mbeya, Njombe, Dar-es-salaam, Morogoro, Iringa and Nairobi-Kenya, the Program Director of the ‘Farmer to Farmer programme’ under CRS, Marry Katabange highlighted that, the programme promotes sustainable economic growth, food security and agricultural development worldwide.

“Volunteer technical assistance from US farmers, agribusinesses, cooperatives, and universities helps developing countries to improve productivity, access new markets, and conserve environmental and natural resources,” she noted.

According to her, this people-to-people exchange promotes international goodwill, understanding of US foreign assistance programmes and private involvement in development activities.

“Farmer-to-Farmer volunteers work with farmers, producer groups, rural businesses, and service providers to develop local capacity necessary to increase food production and rural incomes as well as to expand economic growth and address environmental and natural resource management challenges,” she pointed out.

Briefing the Regional Agriculture and Cooperative Officer, Simon Msoka from Kilimanjaro regional office who represented the Regional Administrative Secretary (RAS) Severine Kahitwa, the CRS Country Director (Tanzania), Brian Gleeson said the Catholic Relief Services was founded in 1943 by the Catholic Bishops of the United States to serve World War II survivors in Europe.

“Our core aim is to assist impoverished and disadvantaged people overseas, working in the spirit of Catholic social teaching to promote the sacredness of human life and the dignity of the human person,” he detailed.

“As part of the universal mission of the Catholic Church, we work with local, national and international Catholic institutions and structures, as well as other organisations, to assist people on the basis of need, not creed, race or nationality,” he added.

Simon Msoka who represented Kilimanjaro RAS, Severine Kahitwa said the government in Kilimanjaro Region recommends the role played by the people of United States of America and CRS in the promoting agriculture for the small farmers in Tanzania and in the world in general.

“The ‘Farmer-to-Farmer’ programme is vital for sustainable agriculture particularly for small scale farmers and my appeal to the small farmers is to adopt agribusiness and treat farming as a business and not a substantial production mechanism alone,” he emphasised.