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What I Learned From Training Farmers in Tanzania

We read a lot about sustainable agriculture on our multi-acre farms in the USA and the rest of the developed world. What makes them sustainable? The most common farm inputs and farm capital assets tied into sustainability are

But there is nothing more sustainable than a small farmer managing to eke out a living by producing food and a bit of cash for the family on one to two acres in a sub-tropical highland in the mountains of Eastern Tanzania.

Take a look at this picture of a randomly planted tract, straddling a small creek and looking like a dense and healthy backyard garden. It's a bit hard to pick out all the crops, but there are bananas, pineapple, mango, taro, cassava, chick peas, coconut, cloves and oranges. Their produce is either consumed over the year by the farmer and family or sold for cash to local brokers. It's been recently weeded so the fertile, dark red, volcanic soil is readily exposed.

For most of the year, weeds and/or herbs cover the ground between the cultivated crops. The farmers don't fertilize or spray pesticides, more out of necessity because they don't have the cash, than out of principle. However, inspecting the plants more closely, we don't see any nutrient deficiency or a serious insect or pest damage. They are starting to see fruit flies during the peak harvest. With the many hosts of the insect pest it's a bigger problem than the individual farmers can handle without government and university extension intervention.

Fortunately, the diversity creates a hedge against the likely failure of one crop or another and a rich environment that attracts many insect predators and parasites. The low intensity cultivation allows renewal of soil nutrients and organic material. The balance between pests and beneficial organisms is stable. It is easy to imagine how farm advisors and farm trainers with experience in large scale agriculture could push for a monoculture environment with all the inputs of modern technology but I found it necessary to take a step back and evaluate the methods practiced on the farms in Tanzania.

What is needed, though, are improved varieties and simplified and practical methods to increase output and cash flow without disturbing the integrated farming environment. The question is whether they can resist the pressure to change or maintain their farming lifestyle and protect the environment.

John Casazza
posted August 7, 2009 9:18 PM

Comment on this article | Comments (3)

Comments (3)

John, how interesting! It seems like there was a sublte shift in your outlook on small-scale farming after your Farmer-to-Farmer experience, compared to when I met you in Morogoro? I agree that some wider intervention will be critical to these farmers, particularly with respect to the fruit fly situation. Thanks for writing this piece about your work with CNFA. I'm happy the experience was a good one! Best, Sapna

posted by Sapna Shah | 2009-08-17

John -- This is a great dispatch. Sounds like it was a fascinating trip and eye-opening. Thanks for all of your efforts to promote the CNR Alumni Association. Welcome back and see you soon! Kathryn

posted by | 2009-08-20

Mr. John, these are nice findings, I appreciate and hope that your trip to Tanzania was full of appreciations of the orgarnically produced crops. And I hope you noted the reason as to why those farmers were intergrating such varieties of crops. Your suggestins on the last paragraph are for sure good, but I wanted to add that, if we successed on what you suggested, also we have to look on how to identify the potental markets for the expected increase in out put as well as solving some if not all the logistical problems facing the farmers. As CNFA affiliate, I say welcome again to Tz.

posted by Ramadhani Omari Majubwa | 2009-08-28

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