Appropriate and timely use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can drive the global push to address a range of food insecurities caused by preventable diseases.
In this special report that examines the power, potential and value of ICT in agricultural transformation in Tanzania reviewing a case study of cassava and maize diseases and pests…
In this special report that examines the power, potential and value of ICT in agricultural transformation in Tanzania reviewing a case study of cassava and maize diseases and pests…
The value of Information Communication Technology (ICT) to agricultural transformation in Tanzania best became evident when severe attacks by several biotic and abiotic dynamics including cassava and corn mosaic disease (CMD) and cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) hit the lake zone.
Majority of Tanzania’s population lives in rural communities relying heavily on natural resources. Two thirds of Tanzanians depends on agriculture, 95 percent of which is rain-fed.
Agriculture is the chief economic activity in the country, currently employing young graduates to develop their small and medium scale farms.
Farmers’ lack of technological knowhow to shift their agriculture from hand hoe to modern farming methods like irrigation and use of tractors seriously undermines food security.
Charles Masanja, a farmer in Misugwi, Mwanza (Lake region) laments that little knowledge on modern agricultural methods, modern communication technologies like use of mobile phones and the internet affects farmers initiative to advance agriculture.
As this farmer has observed, ICT is a powerful mechanism and can play a key role in the development process not only to famers but also in other sectors.
ICT cuts across various technologies of computers, multimedia, telecommunication systems ‘fixed lines, wireless, satellite’ and mobile infrastructures/communication networks.
Constituting the main threat to cassava and maize productivity, both staple foods in the country, the outbreak of CMD and CBSD severely undermined the country’s food security.
The Lake Zone, Geita, Shinyanga, Simiyu, Mara, Mwanza and Kagera regions, were not the only ones affected, central regions of Dodoma, Tabora and Singida also suffered massive yield losses of maize, sunflowers and rice.
Valued for its ability to flourish in harsh conditions, cassavas produce their carbohydrate-rich roots in the poorest of soils and are also drought resistant.
Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives, Adam Malima notes that under normal circumstances, cassava yields are as high as 25 to 40 tonnes per hectare but owing to the outbreak, yields are sometimes less than 5 tonnes per hectare.
Researchers say CMD alone accounts to the loss of an estimated 45percent of cassava produce in East and Central Africa, worse is CBSD which cleans out 100percent of all yields.
In 2005 for example, CMD alone caused crop losses of 4 million metric tons per year in Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. Conversely, CBSD caused estimated crop losses in Tanzania of between $35 and 70 million per year calculated at a price of $100 per metric tons of fresh cassava.
Additionally, loss estimates upon minimum average prices of high quality cassava flour in Dar es Salaam would make this at least $70-140 million at wholesale, and $175-350 million at retail.
With that level of threat, ICT is the key element in the fight against the diseases and saving billions of lives from malnutrition and outright starvation.
Dr Joseph Nduguru, Officer in Charge at the Mikocheni Agriculture Research Institute explains that for sustainable management of cassava virus diseases, “we need to build the capacity of the national research institutions in terms of human and infrastructure.”
“The ability of research institutions to avail their findings to farmers in time, automatically helps in the reduction of yield loss that results from improper use of pests, detection of new diseases and proper harvest/storage of agro produces...” says Dr. Nduguru who goes to note that timely awareness allows for quick response preventing the devastating effects.
As matters stand, farmers in some areas in the country are becoming the victim of CBSD and CMD for replanting cassava cuttings from infected cassava plants.
Take the case of sparking conflict to famers in Mara’s Bunda district, they unknowingly planted infected cassava cuttings from Mwanza villages of Mayolwa in Misungwi district and Nyasenga and Sima in Sengerema.
“Before learning of the disease and its symptoms, we used to point fingers to one another…most of us concluded that it was witchcraft…” concedes Maginge Chacha a cassava farmer from Nyalero.
Consider a texting system that would send such information to the farmers’ phones, they would be informed and warned: then the profound effect of ICT becomes evident. Especially in a country where superstition has seen old women and albinos killed in the hundreds.
ICT in remote and rural areas is a life saver, with available community radio stations lacking regular programs on new outbreaks and other findings, a means to transmit information fast from research institutes directly to the farmers or their extension officers is clearly not a privilege but a necessity, as are phones and access to internet.
During the last decade, these plant pathogens have increased in number, distribution and in some places, they have forced farmers to abandon their fields.
“We need ‘a big push’ from the government to inform the community most of whom depend on agriculture to survive,” says Mwanahamisi Salim a spokesperson for Oxfam Tanzania.
“Speaking of Agriculture, you’re speaking of over 60percent of the entire country’s population…” she explains “…the population needs to be well informed on weather and climate changes, research findings, diseases, available pesticides, markets for their agro produces…”
To mass disperse this information the spokesperson underscores the value of ICT.
She points out that her organization has been training small scale farmers and equipping them with mobile phones through which they can access relevant information on not only outbreaks but also agro-inputs, availability of market and modern agriculture practices.
This is the other frontier that ICT drives the farmers to, market and prices.
Crop auctioneers are notoriously minting millions from farmers but with advent of ICT farmers are empowered with bargaining power since they are aware of market conditions and related prices.
Despite these efforts which have seen an increase in the number of mobile phones to farmers, most of remote parts of the country still suffer from the lack of reliable network signals and frequency coverage.
Tanzania Meteorological Agency Director of Forecasting Services Dr. Hamza Kabelwa confirmed that most of their forecasting findings do not reach farmers especially remote areas.
To bridge the gap, he said the agency in collaboration with other state and non-state organs has set up 23community radio stations across the country to increase farmers’ awareness.
“We have issued a full fledged computer access initiative to Sengerema district council and mobile phones …our goal is to enable farmers get information as fast as possible,” he said.
Further, the agency is setting up its own network server to allow farmers’ representatives to receive text messages directly from the agency.
At the moment, only two Telecom companies Vodacom Tanzania and Tigo Tanzania have projects geared at increasing farmers’ access to information and news.
But still, these services are charged and technical requiring farmers (mostly illiterate) to subscribe to daily messages from the phone companies.
So the Executive Director of the Agricultural Council of Tanzania, Janet Bitegeko says the council is working to strengthen information communication to farmers via easier and free methods.
While there is huge ground to be made, Tanzania has made commendable steps towards development of ICT in the country.
With its advent only a decade ago Tanzania has since then established and developed a fully fledged national ICT Policy overseen by Dar es Salaam Teknoham Business Incubator (DTBi).
According to the organisation’s Chief Executive Officer and Senior Government Advisor (ICT, Innovation & Tech Entrepreneurship) Eng. George Mulamula, the move has created an enabling environment for entrepreneurship and encouraged innovative solutions to meet the needs of most all economic sectors including education, health and now agriculture.
“We provide them with Business Development Services, from technical knowledge to business management skills, and at times linking them to financial resources to allow them to commercialize their products,” he explained.
“In the Agricultural sector, we are linking farmers to the market by providing a price data base and we are setting up a website that disseminates information to both farmers and buyers…” he said.
Working with entrepreneurs, DTBi has also set up a commodity exchange portal that allows access to Tanzanian produce abroad increasing the rate of exports.
Following the Smart-partnership event recently held in Tanzania, DTBi is working on integrating agricultural communities with the blossoming Extractive Industry in a profitable and sustainable manner rather than depending on Corporate Social Responsibility donations.
It will include use of new technologies like wireless sensor systems to monitor soil moisture and assist in irrigation mechanisms.
Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA) has asserted its will to secure reliable network access across the country, hovering to issue a private number to be used by famers to receive necessary information.
Media in the country is also called to step up the dispersion of information to farmers. With the switch from analogue to digital transmissions the efforts are well underway.
Majority of Tanzania’s population lives in rural communities relying heavily on natural resources. Two thirds of Tanzanians depends on agriculture, 95 percent of which is rain-fed.
Agriculture is the chief economic activity in the country, currently employing young graduates to develop their small and medium scale farms.
Farmers’ lack of technological knowhow to shift their agriculture from hand hoe to modern farming methods like irrigation and use of tractors seriously undermines food security.
Charles Masanja, a farmer in Misugwi, Mwanza (Lake region) laments that little knowledge on modern agricultural methods, modern communication technologies like use of mobile phones and the internet affects farmers initiative to advance agriculture.
As this farmer has observed, ICT is a powerful mechanism and can play a key role in the development process not only to famers but also in other sectors.
ICT cuts across various technologies of computers, multimedia, telecommunication systems ‘fixed lines, wireless, satellite’ and mobile infrastructures/communication networks.
Constituting the main threat to cassava and maize productivity, both staple foods in the country, the outbreak of CMD and CBSD severely undermined the country’s food security.
The Lake Zone, Geita, Shinyanga, Simiyu, Mara, Mwanza and Kagera regions, were not the only ones affected, central regions of Dodoma, Tabora and Singida also suffered massive yield losses of maize, sunflowers and rice.
Valued for its ability to flourish in harsh conditions, cassavas produce their carbohydrate-rich roots in the poorest of soils and are also drought resistant.
Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives, Adam Malima notes that under normal circumstances, cassava yields are as high as 25 to 40 tonnes per hectare but owing to the outbreak, yields are sometimes less than 5 tonnes per hectare.
Researchers say CMD alone accounts to the loss of an estimated 45percent of cassava produce in East and Central Africa, worse is CBSD which cleans out 100percent of all yields.
In 2005 for example, CMD alone caused crop losses of 4 million metric tons per year in Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. Conversely, CBSD caused estimated crop losses in Tanzania of between $35 and 70 million per year calculated at a price of $100 per metric tons of fresh cassava.
Additionally, loss estimates upon minimum average prices of high quality cassava flour in Dar es Salaam would make this at least $70-140 million at wholesale, and $175-350 million at retail.
With that level of threat, ICT is the key element in the fight against the diseases and saving billions of lives from malnutrition and outright starvation.
Dr Joseph Nduguru, Officer in Charge at the Mikocheni Agriculture Research Institute explains that for sustainable management of cassava virus diseases, “we need to build the capacity of the national research institutions in terms of human and infrastructure.”
“The ability of research institutions to avail their findings to farmers in time, automatically helps in the reduction of yield loss that results from improper use of pests, detection of new diseases and proper harvest/storage of agro produces...” says Dr. Nduguru who goes to note that timely awareness allows for quick response preventing the devastating effects.
As matters stand, farmers in some areas in the country are becoming the victim of CBSD and CMD for replanting cassava cuttings from infected cassava plants.
Take the case of sparking conflict to famers in Mara’s Bunda district, they unknowingly planted infected cassava cuttings from Mwanza villages of Mayolwa in Misungwi district and Nyasenga and Sima in Sengerema.
“Before learning of the disease and its symptoms, we used to point fingers to one another…most of us concluded that it was witchcraft…” concedes Maginge Chacha a cassava farmer from Nyalero.
Consider a texting system that would send such information to the farmers’ phones, they would be informed and warned: then the profound effect of ICT becomes evident. Especially in a country where superstition has seen old women and albinos killed in the hundreds.
ICT in remote and rural areas is a life saver, with available community radio stations lacking regular programs on new outbreaks and other findings, a means to transmit information fast from research institutes directly to the farmers or their extension officers is clearly not a privilege but a necessity, as are phones and access to internet.
During the last decade, these plant pathogens have increased in number, distribution and in some places, they have forced farmers to abandon their fields.
“We need ‘a big push’ from the government to inform the community most of whom depend on agriculture to survive,” says Mwanahamisi Salim a spokesperson for Oxfam Tanzania.
“Speaking of Agriculture, you’re speaking of over 60percent of the entire country’s population…” she explains “…the population needs to be well informed on weather and climate changes, research findings, diseases, available pesticides, markets for their agro produces…”
To mass disperse this information the spokesperson underscores the value of ICT.
She points out that her organization has been training small scale farmers and equipping them with mobile phones through which they can access relevant information on not only outbreaks but also agro-inputs, availability of market and modern agriculture practices.
This is the other frontier that ICT drives the farmers to, market and prices.
Crop auctioneers are notoriously minting millions from farmers but with advent of ICT farmers are empowered with bargaining power since they are aware of market conditions and related prices.
Despite these efforts which have seen an increase in the number of mobile phones to farmers, most of remote parts of the country still suffer from the lack of reliable network signals and frequency coverage.
Tanzania Meteorological Agency Director of Forecasting Services Dr. Hamza Kabelwa confirmed that most of their forecasting findings do not reach farmers especially remote areas.
To bridge the gap, he said the agency in collaboration with other state and non-state organs has set up 23community radio stations across the country to increase farmers’ awareness.
“We have issued a full fledged computer access initiative to Sengerema district council and mobile phones …our goal is to enable farmers get information as fast as possible,” he said.
Further, the agency is setting up its own network server to allow farmers’ representatives to receive text messages directly from the agency.
At the moment, only two Telecom companies Vodacom Tanzania and Tigo Tanzania have projects geared at increasing farmers’ access to information and news.
But still, these services are charged and technical requiring farmers (mostly illiterate) to subscribe to daily messages from the phone companies.
So the Executive Director of the Agricultural Council of Tanzania, Janet Bitegeko says the council is working to strengthen information communication to farmers via easier and free methods.
While there is huge ground to be made, Tanzania has made commendable steps towards development of ICT in the country.
With its advent only a decade ago Tanzania has since then established and developed a fully fledged national ICT Policy overseen by Dar es Salaam Teknoham Business Incubator (DTBi).
According to the organisation’s Chief Executive Officer and Senior Government Advisor (ICT, Innovation & Tech Entrepreneurship) Eng. George Mulamula, the move has created an enabling environment for entrepreneurship and encouraged innovative solutions to meet the needs of most all economic sectors including education, health and now agriculture.
“We provide them with Business Development Services, from technical knowledge to business management skills, and at times linking them to financial resources to allow them to commercialize their products,” he explained.
“In the Agricultural sector, we are linking farmers to the market by providing a price data base and we are setting up a website that disseminates information to both farmers and buyers…” he said.
Working with entrepreneurs, DTBi has also set up a commodity exchange portal that allows access to Tanzanian produce abroad increasing the rate of exports.
Following the Smart-partnership event recently held in Tanzania, DTBi is working on integrating agricultural communities with the blossoming Extractive Industry in a profitable and sustainable manner rather than depending on Corporate Social Responsibility donations.
It will include use of new technologies like wireless sensor systems to monitor soil moisture and assist in irrigation mechanisms.
Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA) has asserted its will to secure reliable network access across the country, hovering to issue a private number to be used by famers to receive necessary information.
Media in the country is also called to step up the dispersion of information to farmers. With the switch from analogue to digital transmissions the efforts are well underway.
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