A senior regional administrator has recently challenged local business leaders and entrepreneurs to use business platforms as catalysts for education and investment exchange.

It is true that business platforms also involve exchanging views or experiences on what is possible, but finally it is to the banks and other financial institutions that someone needs to sell bankable ideas – to land whatever credit facilities one is after.

It all implies there are good chances that the idea fronted will succeed in the market as banks are risk averse, not wishing to sink money into anything or everything without careful thought.

It is at the same time positive that there are new instances of exchanging ideas in various places, as that appeal was given at a recent regional business council meeting in Njombe, an innovation on what regions are doing or consulting about.

There are occasional – even periodic – agro-sector shows as well as the annual international trade fair but the focus has usually been on importing and exporting goods.

Earlier, there used to be rushes for bargain commodities, which may not have been eclipsed altogether as the mid-year jamboree attracts tens of thousands of people, many unlikely to be traders.

A regional business council is a recent innovation coming on top of other innovations like minerals selling hubs, regional banks and special zones.

There is no doubt that industrialisation is the most viable path to sustainable economic growth and regional self-reliance, but it isn’t a matter of wishing to have industry so as to employ people as the politics often presents the matter.

What is crucial about industrialisation is creation of the demand of a large number of people regularly seeking routine consumables, where the demand is strong enough to anchor local industry without excessive protection.

It is a major failing of past industrialisation experiences still nurtured to this day and it is clear that when a major factory in a sector is protected it sets it price, stifling competition.

The need for local participation in large-scale investments was aired at the meeting, with a rather skewed observation that some members of the local business community remain complacent and thus risk becoming spectators as external investors move in to fill the vacuum.

It is true that foreign investors can’t fill a vacuum but they have an opportunity to make a quick buck while local investors crawl in depending on their savings as most rural land is seldom acceptable as collateral in most banks.

Where local investors are bystanders or spectators, it implies that there is no environment for effective investment in many routine consumer goods as taxes remain high.

Imports rather cheap by comparison and plenty of savings or deposits lie in banks for lack of profitable investments. People need to be given the land they hold by paying a fee at district level, at least to ‘overturn’ clan links no longer really useful or relevant.

Reviewing the 1996 science, technology policy just a start

REPORTS that the government has been reviewing the national science and technology policy of 1996 were not surprising.

It was similar with reports about reviews being conducted on extensive syllabus changes, given the situation of employment in the country in the past two decades or so.

This was in relation to remarks at midweek by a ministerial coordinator for science, technology and innovation at a high-level Tanzania-Japan knowledge-sharing forum held in Morogoro municipality, in many ways a national agro-sector expertise powerhouse.

Discussion focused on envisaged measures expected to uplift productivity in agriculture, including taking note of the pivotal role of technology.

The experts will have plenty of work to do toward aligning the legal and scientific context of innovation in the sector in line with the nation’s Development Vision 2050, seeking to ensure that technology takes root as an economic engine.

Resources are being directed at innovation and updating policy provisions to reflect the digital and mechanical demands of the prevailing environment.

A member of the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) faculty is on record as having noted that rapid urbanisation was eating into arable land.

That was also seen as a factor to be embedded in mapping out agro-sector policy and innovation strategies, including noting rising transformation of villages into towns meant less land for agriculture and greater need for hyper productivity solutions.

There was clearly much less pressure on land when the current policy was being put into place 30 years ago, with agricultural engineering and advanced technology for producing more on smaller plots not so much of a problem at the time.

But at least one stakeholder has been here most of the time – namely, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) – is used to conducting research that simplifies the use of complex technologies for local farmers.

There was a formula the agency developed years back, given their own experience (the kaizen philosophy), which SUA academics are familiar with and which has been applied in various regions already.

The meeting didn’t review JICA experience or techniques, but there is no doubt that there will be input to be supplied through the extensive agro-sector innovations already used.

There was considerable interest in the electoral campaign promise of setting up more than 1,000 agriculture mechanisation hubs, which experts believe will be a game-changer by reducing post-harvest losses and speeding up cultivation.

Still, there is unfinished business in that regard as experience with tractors and power tillers during the past half-decade showed that villages could not hold the equipment and put them to work profitably enough.

There has since been a difference with power tillers, where they are purchased or loaned for use in farms, and then converted to ape Toyo mechanised carts.

scarce resources.can indeed have more than one use, so the policy focus ought to privilege individual needs or preferences instead of group provisions that could be misdirected, leading to waste of scarce resources.