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Reaction to govt ban on vegetable imports mixed
2007-09-18 09:50:48
By Austin Beyadi
Only a day after the government imposed a ban on the importation of vegetables and their sale in the country, the move has been faulted as contravening the principles of a free market economy.
Tanzania Agriculture Society (Taso) unleashed the first salvo of criticism yesterday, calling upon the government to rethink the decision and lift the ban as soon as practicable.
Taso Acting Secretary General Amisi Nyangi said the best and most realistic option was for the government to lift the ban by allowing supermarkets to continue importing the products while also encouraging and empowering local farmers to improve the quality of their produce.
He said instead of imposing the ban, the government will have acted more prudently if it directed more resources and inputs into training programmes ``to help local farmers improve the quality of their harvests by laying emphasis on modern agriculture”.
``The day-to-day responsibility of supporting the integration of small-scale farmers into supply chains is very practical. It will involve identifying buyers, solving quality problems, or improving packaging,” he added.
In his remarks when interviewed by The Guardian in Dar es Salaam, Nyangi was emphatic that under the free market economy intervention by the government in business matters was ``out of place and unfair because there will always be customers with a special liking for imported vegetables and other items even when the market is saturated with locally made or accessed goods``.
``For Tanzanian farmers to be in a position where they can comfortably have their foodstuffs accepted by supermarkets, years of strategic investment is necessary.
That would include enhancing productivity and getting adequate training on quality management and packaging,” the Taso official pointed out.
He said it would pay for the government to arm local farmers with modern farm inputs techniques ``and in the long run they will increase production and improve the quality of their products``.
``We are not completely against the use of local products in our markets but we also have to consider the issue of quality and packaging because these are decisive factors in attracting customers,`` he noted further.
However, City Supermarket Manager Mushtaq Khan described the government`s move as highly commendable “because it is geared at promoting local farmers and their produce and challenging them to raise productivity for their own good and the good of the national economy”.
Khan saw the ban as “positively eating into the market for foreign food supplies”, thus making more money circulate in the Tanzania’s own economy.
Rajab Hamis, a vegetable vendor at Namanga in the city, commended the government for “a very good move which will help local small-holder farmers as well as large-scale farmers in the country earn more income by selling their products within the country”.
“Many Tanzanian farmers have long lost confidence in the government because it has often been preaching on the presumed need to cushion the agricultural sector while at the same time allowing supermarkets to import products available in the country”.
A manager at the Imalaseko Supermarket in Dar es Salaam’s central business district who gave his name only as Rajab was also of the view that the government’s move was merited support because it would boost cash and food crop production as well as animal husbandry in the country.
However, he cautioned that things would not be as good as many local farmers may expect unless they are trained on the production of better quality crops and livestock so that they can meet the needs and demands of supermarkets.
The government ban on imported vegetables was announced at a news conference in Dar es Salaam on Sunday by Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives minister Stephen Wassira.
He said the move sought to make Tanzania’s agriculture more business-oriented and beneficial to farmers, adding that it was unacceptable for investors to continue importing goods that are available in abundance locally.
The government would employ and dispatch 2,500 agricultural experts to teach indigenous farmers modern methods of improving agriculture, the minister stated, adding: “It is impossible for agriculture to improve when there are no special improvement plans, including utilising the services of experts and using fertilisers, good seeds and better farm implements”.
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