Tanzania

This presentation was part of the Ag Sector Council Seminar, "Voucher Schemes for Enhanced Fertilizer Use: Lessons Learned and Policy Implications." The event was held at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. on January 25, 2012.

Click on "Download" to the right to access a PDF of the PowerPoint presentation.

Land tenure challenges are age-old and climate change simply exacerbates the situation. The uncertainty of future climate variability and change requires greater flexibility in all land-based production systems. Given the central role of user rights in those systems, land and resource tenure will likewise require greater flexibility, thus raising a critical policy matter for many countries to maintain flexibility in customary and statutory tenure systems. Tenure security will be a critical factor in providing the incentives for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change. Because climate-induced migrations could lead to social tensions, climate change will challenge institutions responsible for the governance of natural resources to establish inclusive processes to negotiate claims, regulate disputes, and establish new tenure systems.

This factsheet was developed as part of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Climate-Smart Agriculture Workshop. The workshop focused on approaches for effective program design of climate-smart agriculture in support of both country and regional CAADP investment plans. Climate-smart agriculture incorporates practices that increase productivity, efficiency, resilience, adaptive capacity, and mitigation potential of production systems.

This summary report is based on the First Draft of the Tanzania Agriculture and Food Security Investment Plan dated December 19th 2010. The Draft represents the result of detailed deliberations and consultations by the CAADP Task Force and the TAFSIP Drafting Team over the preceding six months.

The Tanzania Agriculture and Food Security Investment Plan (TAFSIP) is an historic initiative that brings all stakeholders in the agricultural sector both in the mainland and in Zanzibar to a common agenda of comprehensively transforming the sector to create wealth, reduce poverty and achieve food and nutrition security.

The TAFSIP is a product of years of consultative processes between the Government, the private sector, Development Partners, farmers, civil society organisations and non‐state actors, the African Union Commission (AUC), NEPAD/NPCA; the East African Community; CAADP Pillar Institutions; ReSAKSS/IFPRI and other regional and international bodies on how to promote agricultural growth and food and nutrition security in Tanzania under the framework of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).

These consultative processes culminated into the signing of the CAADP Compact on the 8th of July 2010 with the aim of promoting increased production and productivity in the agricultural sector towards reduction of poverty and achieving food and nutrition security.

The preparation of the TAFSIP is one of the Post‐compact activities identified in the roadmap. It builds on a series of analytical work done by various institutions as well as on the stock taking exercise that was done by the CAADP Task Force in May 2010.

As part of the Rural Agricultural Finance and Food Security (RAFFS) Practitioner Learning Program (PLP), Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Floresta collaborated on a comparative case study to document the linkages between village savings and loan associations (VSLAs) and food security for rural clients in Sierra Leone (CRS) and Tanzania (Floresta). From March 2009 to March 2010, the two organizations collected data to explore the hypothesis that VSLAs can contribute to food security by increasing food availability (through an increase in agricultural productivity) and also by increasing food access (through an increase in household income).

To better understand the different linkages between VSLA activities and food security, CRS and Floresta analyzed their data through a number of different lenses including loan purpose, loan seasonality, loans and gender, loans and food security, savings share-out and group social funds. The results of this study demonstrate that VSLAs can, in fact, positively affect household well-being and food security in a number of ways.

In 2010, the number of undernourished people worldwide topped 925 million. Among the many factors responsible for this figure are high domestic food prices, lower household incomes, and increasing unemployment, all of which have significantly reduced access to food for the poor. Research has shown that a healthy agricultural sector can provide an economic buffer during financial crises. In addition, financial services responding to the food security needs of rural households can lead to more successful outreach and have a greater impact on the poor.

This presentation by Moses Nyabila (Heifer International) was part of the Agriculture Sector Council Seminar,"East Africa Dairy: A Shared Smallholder, Business and Government Partnership."