Banker says Tanzania could benefit from ongoing global food crisis

from IPP Media

By Perege Gumbo, recently from Johannesburg

A leading economist has said Tanzania is one of the few African states which command great potential to turning the current global food crisis into gainful opportunity.

That is because the country is endowed with huge arable land and has since independence enjoyed unparalleled peace and social-cultural stability, unlike so many other countries in the region.

Addressing participants to the second Business Journalism Forum, the Standard Bank Group Economist Yvonne Mhango said that with many African nations facing internal political instabilities, Tanzania could benefit from the current global food crisis.

Drawing contrasts, she said that recent Kenya�s post election violence and conflicts in Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, Zimbabwe and Northern Uganda were factors which do not augur well with enhancement of farm productivity.

Tanzania has a surface area of 94.3 million hectares, of which 19.1 million hectares represents arable land, but only 5.1 million hectares are cultivated annually. The rest of the arable land is either reserved or used for pasture.

Under proper policies, incentives and technological encouragement, this land could produce enough crops to feed itself and export the surplus to global markets.

These remarks are coming in the wake of indicators showing that food prices have been rising globally, and use of crops for bio-fuels is partly blamed for the problems.

In a report titled Africa Economic Outlook, launched recently in Maputo, the African Development Bank (ADB) raised concerns that besides the rising prices of crude oil in the last three months, prices of some major food crops have nearly doubled.

According to the report, rice prices increased from USD373 a tonne to USD760 while that of maize rose from USD171 a tonne to USD220 in the last three months.

Yvonne further said that since there was no signs that the prices of food would go down as a result of continued hiking of fuel prices which has forced many major food producers to opt for bio-fuel, embarking on commercial irrigation would turn the current food crisis into economic opportunity.

She said that as food shortages continued, many African economies and the lives of common people were likely to be pushed further into abject poverty.

``This is a blow for the African nations as they struggle to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing number of people who do not attend schools as well as poverty as these won�t be attained in the presence of severe hunger`` she stressed.

Apart from bio-fuels opted for by the major world crop producers to mitigate the climbing fuel prices, she said other factors that are contributing to food crisis in Africa as being changing dietary cultures, increase of fertiliser prices, high energy costs, and prolonged droughts in some parts of Africa.

Despite erratic weather, bad policies and recent ban of crop exports by countries such as China and Zambia were equally harmful.

One of the striking reasons for global food crisis she said was the Chinese intensive use of crops to feed its animals particularly pork which is the main food dependent of the majority Chinese.

In particular, she said the ban on crop exports was counter productive over the longer runs since it would tend to discourage local farmers to increase production.

She proposed that food crisis could best be dealt with by African states including Tanzania through embarking on commercial irrigation schemes, improvement in the agricultural production and the use of better seeds and fertiliser.