Kikwete calls for more investments in farming

AFRICAN governments need to come up with policies that will unlock private investments in agriculture to boost transformation in the sector and become key driver of growth and development, former President Jakaya Kikwete has said.

 Speaking at African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in Nairobi, Kenya last week, Mr Kikwete said African government have a role of putting in place necessary infrastructures to attract investments in the sector which remains the mainstay of many economies in the continent despite its sluggish growth

“In a situation where agriculture is considered too risky by banks, governments must step in. Agro infrastructure must be put by government,” said Mr Kikwete who was among the panelists at a session titled ‘Charting the Best Way Forward to Achieve Transformation in African Agriculture,’ at the forum.

 Mr Kikwete said African countries have been overly depending on research and innovations from the developed world markets that are in most cases not tailored to meet the unique needs and situations of the African continent.

 It was time African governments must begin committing more to fund research, science, technology and innovations that are home grown and driven and geared to help the continent become food secure and an exporter of food.

 “In transforming agriculture, the financing of agriculture research cannot be left to the hands of donors. Govt must finance it,” he said.

Tanzania launched Kilimo Kwanza initiative in 2009 to spur transformation the sector through public and private sector investments and established a stateowned bank last year to provide short, medium and long-term financing for agriculture.

The government provided 60 billion shillings in seed capital for the bank, Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB) and said it would invest 800bn/- (380 million US dollars) over the next eight years in the bank, to boost growth in the sector, which has long been stifled by low productivity and a lack of financing.

Agriculture employs about 70 per cent of the population in Tanzania and contributes about 23 per cent of the national economic output. It accounts for 30 per cent of exports and 65 per cent of inputs to the industrial sector.

Although there has been improvement in production of some food crops such as maize and rice as well as livestock and fisheries, the sector is characterised with declining production of some of key cash crops such as cotton, cashew-nuts, coffee and sisal.

The agriculture forum in Nairobi closed last week with African leaders, businesses and major development partners pledging more than 30 billion US dollars in investments to increase production, income and employment for smallholder farmers and local African agriculture businesses over the next ten years.

 The collective pledges at the AGRF are believed to represent the largest package of financial commitments to the African agricultural sector to date, backed by the broadest coalitions ever assembled in support of food production on the continent.