CHANGES are taking place each passing day in all sectors of economy and agriculture is not being left behind, while there is a feeling that what is vital in modernizing each sector is really the magic formula the country needs to end poverty. When it comes to agriculture, the range of benefits isn’t just nutrition but health, as experts agree that inappropriate diets more than external disturbances cause much of the world’s non-communicable diseases. In that case nothing appears to be more urgent than improving agriculture to obtain the right results.

Much of this was lately being emphasized by former premier Mizengo Pinda at a high-level traditional food gala in the capital early in the week, appealing to public officials at all levels to help communities embrace organic farming He affirmed that a range of health problems facing Tanzanians can be solved just by taking properly grown food, at a gathering inspired by Islands of Peace, abbreviated IDP from its French original Iles de Paix. It is an NGO specialized in supporting local development, and it believes organic farming is easy to do.

The former premier pointed out that while there are many stakeholders, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working on ecological agriculture, their efforts are not pooled together as they do not know one another, where they operate and what they do. Making this observation would appear to suggest an organizational drawback but as a matter of fact it just indicates that the market dimension is still low, otherwise they would know one another by operating in one market. They could compare notes, pool resources.

It can be somewhat enlightening to look at the theme of the gala, namely improving nature through local and traditional food, along with the fact that it brought together participants from government agencies, the private sector, organic farming associations and others. It was plausible enough to suggest that leaders, implying public officials, have a great role to play in ensuring the promotion of organic farming, improved food production and food security in the country. These themes were taken together but it is observable that the issues can’t be put up with such ease, as households don’t suffice for organic farming anchorage.

As it is the case in horticulture and a range of new products, it takes a certain amount of investment in a gardening or actual farming project to get all those preliminaries right, When someone makes that effort the basic idea is to sell an improved product that could find its way not just to stalls but supermarkets, meanwhile as those living at the bottom of the ladder are unlikely to look for organic vegetables but low priced vegetables. As a matter of act, Europe has standardized farm produce and imports to organic just in the past 20 years.

In that case, while the techniques used in organic farming are available virtually to anyone who wants to farm, allocating extra resources to farm by organic methods is strictly speaking a middle class preoccupation. It is a method of specialization, standing apart from the crowd, in like manner as to look for organic only food stores as it is less a habit arising less from the need to eat but to eat well. In that case both organic farming and eating organic will become widespread when the streets have higher incomes and organic minded habits, or in other words, when we have a predominantly middle class urban population.