Rounding out his visit to the United Republic of Tanzania for the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa, Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) met with Zanzibar President, Amani Abeid Karume, before visiting farmers working with one of IFAD’s programmes. 

“The growing tourism industry of Zanzibar can give a boost to agriculture,” said President Karume during his meeting with Nwanze. “But we need to reduce the reliance on imported, low-priced goods and instead better support local products to make them more attractive for tourists.”

Nwanze’s visit to Zanzibar and meeting with President Karume comes at a crucial time for smallholder farmers in Tanzania who are working to improve their access to markets and price information in order to secure a larger profit for their agricultural goods. At the WEF meetings, leaders, including Tanzania’s President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete have been urging more investment in agriculture and calling for support to what Nwanze has been emphasizing – transforming small farmers into business entrepreneurs is the pathway our of rural poverty. 

“There must be a change in the mindset of development practitioners so that they start looking at smallholder farmers as small business owners that make a profit, rather than rely on hand-outs,” Nwanze said. “As President Karume suggests, governments need to make agricultural plans like business plans, but let’s not forget that they also need to support smallholder farmers to implement those plans.”

A good tangible example of this is the smallholder farmers in Zanzibar who are identifying and managing their own development needs through groups known as farmer field schools. The schools are led and managed by smallholder farmers who work to improve production by sharing and teaching new research and technologies to incorporate into their farming activities. Members of the schools engage in a farming activity that depends on the type of crop grown in the area such as bananas, cassava, rice, vegetables, or livestock husbandry including poultry and dairy cattle. 

While in Zanzibar, IFAD President Nwanze visited a farmer school in the village of Mwakaje to meet with farmers who on their own initiative are researching the control of fruit flies. An infestation of fruit flies has severely decreased the amount of fruit exported, especially mangoes to Middle East countries, forcing small farmers to sell to only local markets at a low price. Through their experimentation and testing supported by the IFAD funded Agricultural Services Support Project, these farmers have created a mixture of local spices to control the pest population. The mixture has proven to be effective and environmentally friendly, and it could replace an expensive and short lasting chemical that the farmers previously used.

The farmers explained to Nwanze that they hope to increase their harvests and in-turn increase the products they have available for export, which will earn them a larger profit. In addition, they told Nwanze that they are planning to start a business with the new mixture.

By the end of last year, there were 360 farmer field schools in Zanzibar, with a total membership of 6675 farmers, more than half of which are women farmers.

In Tanzania, IFAD is working in coordination with the Africa Development Bank and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa to design a programme to increase poor people’s access to sustainable rural financial services, markets and value addition. It will also capitalize on the positive impact that the Agricultural Marketing Systems Development Programme has had in successfully linking producers to markets and in creating opportunities for rural enterprise development. The programme's activities will be linked with those of other programmes that take a value chain approach.

During the WEF on Africa meeting, Nwanze outlined the potential and promise of rural agriculture and called for governments of African countries and the private sector to find synergies among their competing priorities. Partnerships with the private sector are a linchpin in the new vision of IFAD, and under Nwanze’s leadership the Fund is looking to mobilise resources through the private sector for agro-processing, marketing and business development to transform rural areas into thriving economies.