Tanzanian lawmakers have appealed for more budgetary allocation to agriculture not only for food security but also for the sound development of the country's pillar economic sector.
As Tanzania is scheduled to announce its 2008/2009 fiscal budget on Thursday, members of the parliamentary finance committee urged the country's finance minister to input more than the planned 6 percent of the next budget into agriculture.
Finance Minister Mustafa Mkulo has earlier discussed with these lawmakers about the government plan of allocating 6 percent of the planned 7.2 trillion shilling (6 billion U.S. dollars) budget to agriculture.
The committee members, however, appealed to the minister to increase the allocation to 10 percent, as required by the Maputo Declaration.
In 2003, African heads of state and government in the "Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security in Africa" committed to allocating at least 10 percent of their national budgets for agriculture and rural development within five years.
Tanzania is still not among the six African countries that have so far ratified the declaration though agriculture has been Tanzania's pillar of growth, accounting for at least 40 percent of its gross domestic product. But the country was a signatory to the declaration.
Tanzania also allocated 6 percent of the previous fiscal budget to agriculture.
The local lawmakers have opposed the idea of having the private sector take the leading role in investment in agriculture. They argued that it is high time that agriculture received due attention and input from the government so as to avoid the problem of rising food prices.
The Poverty and Human Development Report of 2007 showed that 87 percent of Tanzanian farmers interviewed by the research and analysis group under Tanzania's National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty said that they were not using chemical fertilizers; 77 percent said that they were not using improved seeds; 72 percent said that they were not using pesticides, herbicides or insecticides, due to the high costs of agricultural inputs and services.
As an agricultural nation, Tanzania is basically self-sustaining on normal years but the country has to import grain in years of droughts or floods.
Salva Rweyemamu, communications director of the Tanzanian State House, has warned that excessive food importation could mean imports of food inflation to the country.
Food carries a weight of 55.9 percent in the basket of consumer items that Tanzania uses to measure inflation. Food inflation already stood at 11.7 percent in February this year.
Rising food prices, coupled with skyrocketing prices of petroleum on the world market, can spell out a disaster to a least developed country like Tanzania.
Agriculture takes up 80 percent of Tanzania's population of 40 million, employs 70 percent of its active labor force of 13 million, and contributes to over 40 percent of the country's gross domestic product of 10 billion dollars.
Mossy Suleiman Mussa, a member of parliament from the Mfenesini district, said that about 80 percent of the Tanzanians did not contribute toward the national income because they depended on subsistence farming that hardly yields a good harvest for a return that can ease their livelihood.
The lawmaker added that agriculture could increase national income if more governmental attention and input were put into its development.
Athuman Janguo from the Kisarawe district said that agriculture and transport infrastructure in the rural areas should be given a priority if the government was keen on improving the national economy.
"Tanzania should strive to become the seventh country to ratify the agreement (Maputo Declaration) as the 6 percent (of budgetary allocation to agriculture) is not inadequate," said Athuman Janguo.
Source: Xinhua
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