|
Under-funding research in agriculture ruinous
2006-02-01 07:00:55
By Editor
Available literature shows that over Tsh.1bn that had been earmarked for financing agricultural research in the past two years could not be disbursed to the relevant institutions.
This happened although the parliament had approved such appropriations for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.
So far, there exists no evidence to prove that the responsible ministry failed to secure from the treasury all of its itemized budget proposals, including one for research and development.
Whether the appropriations for research were disbursed in time or may be not availed at all, an apparent hidden weakness seems to weakening our intention to move to poverty alleviation through comprehensive development of agro-business.
Investments in agricultural research and development should underpin the country’s development vision.
In mature capitalist economies, such research undertakings are mainly carried out by corporations, often for selfish ends to encourage innovations that will sharpen their ability to compete in the market.
To a great extent, however, government still supports R&D activities in public agricultural research institutions, which are, in turn, also entitled to provide national support services.
The state is also supposed to build-up national institutional capacity to enable it adopt and accommodate research findings made elsewhere.
For instance, a large international study to be published next month, has proved that poor farmers in developing countries can substantially improve both their yields and livelihoods by adopting resource-conserving practices
The study reviewed 286 recent attempts to introduce such practices on more than 12 million farms in 57 countries, mostly in Africa.
It assessed how yields change when farmers using approaches such as less tilling to conserve soil, integrated pest management — which favours ecological pest control over pesticide spraying — and improved management of soil nutrients.
According to the study, adopting such approaches meant yields increased by an average of 79 percent, and harvests of some crops such as maize, potatoes and beans doubled.
As well as causing less damage to the environment, ’conservation agriculture’ also improved farmers’ wealth by, for instance, reducing their reliance on costly pesticides.
How well is Tanzania prepared to absorb and practice such new developments in research?
From the time of independence up to the late 1980s,we had managed to put in place some research institutions with human and technical facilities of high standards.
Since liberalization of the economy, nothing new has been put up, and even funding for the existing research centres seems to have dried up.
Government’s failure to provide much of the budgeted resources for financing R&D in the farming sector has seriously weakened the intentions to develop this important sector, which, it must be remembered, is the biggest employer and bread earner for the majority poor.
The well-meaning goal of making agriculture the mainstay of the economy will just turn out to be mere window-dressing until serious investment in agricultural R&D is regarded as a priority.
|
