TANZANIA'S small scale farmers are increasingly becoming aware of effects of the climate change in agriculture, hence, adopting mitigating measures at their disposal to sustain productivity.
The 'Sunday News' has established that the measures taken by farmers differ depending on their geographical locations and type of crop they grow.
"No doubt that there is high awareness among small farmers over the issue of effects of climate change to agriculture and controlling measures," according to Agriculture Minister, Mr Hussein Bashe.
Mr Bashe noted that the government, through its budgets and strategies has prioritised climate change adaptation in agriculture.
Chairperson of the National Networks of Farmers' Groups, Mr Apollo Chamwela, told this paper that farmers have been aware of the climate change trends and effects to the agriculture.
"Farmers understand characteristics of climate in areas they live or farm, hence they choose type of crop to grow by considering their environment," Mr Chamwela explained.
For instance, in the past years, most farmers in Dodoma had been cultivating millet, but with climate change which saw reduced rainfall they shifted to growing maize," he said.
"Most farmers are nowadays sensitive when selecting seeds. They choose seeds that could tolerate drought," he stated.
Mr Chamwela, who is also a farmer, said he was using natural methods to lessen climate change effects to farming.
"I grow maize, I personally apply natural method of leaving crop remains on the harvested farm field in a bid to preserve humidity. This is helpful because during the following season of cultivating I can plant because the land still has moisture even with shortage of rains," he explained.
He added: "With this method, I never experience poor crop production as result of drought. I am guaranteed to get high yields."
Mr Abdallah Mkindi, the National Coordinator of the Tanzania Alliance for Biodiversity (TABIO), also echoed that most of country's farmers choose seeds that can withstand impacts of climate change, especially drought.
TABIO is an alliance of civil societies and private sector organisations concerned with biodiversity conservation with emphasis on agricultural biodiversity for livelihood security and food sovereignty.
"They use their experiences alongside knowledge they obtained from experts when selecting seeds. For instance, in Mbozi District, Mbeya region farmers use a type of maize seed called Ibandawe due to experienced shortage of rainfall," Mr Mkindi said.
He added: "When using this type of seed they can harvest about 2500kg of maize per acre."
In Tanzania, about two-thirds of the population lives in rural areas, which largely depend on rain fed agriculture.
Population pressure and climate change may negatively impact on production of important food crops including maize, beans, sorghum and rice.
This might endanger livelihoods and food security. In addition, population which depends on coastal and inland fisheries is increasingly threatened by increasing ocean and freshwater temperatures, and sedimentation after heavy rains.
Sea level rise is putting coastal infrastructure, coastal populations (about 25 per cent of the total population), and coastal ecosystems at risk of inundation, salinisation and storm surge (World Bank 2015).
Since 2008, Tanzania has witnessed severe floods and drought spells in different parts of the country, including Dar es Salaam, Kilosa, Mpwapwa, and Kilombero that resulted into severe infrastructure and houses destruction and displacement of people.
Moreover, water wells pollution has been witnessed along the coast due to the rise of sea level attributed to climate change.
Evidences have shown some considerable submerging of the Islands such as Pangani and Fuvu la Nyani in Rufiji due to the rise of sea level.
Also there has been gradual decrease of glaciers on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro since 1912 due to increase in temperature.
Agriculture, according to the State of Environment Report of 2019, the agriculture sector in Tanzania is particularly vulnerable to climatic change because it is customarily dependent on rainfall.
Prevalence of crop pest and diseases is also reported to have increased, posing more challenge to agriculture.
The government acknowledges recurrent heavy floods and droughts as threats to food and income security and took four steps to mainstream climate change adaptation into its economic and agricultural policies.
First, it designated the National Adaptation Programme of Action of 2007, adhering to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change guidelines of 2001, and prioritised agriculture as the most climate-sensitive sector.
Second, the National Climate Change Strategy of 2012 and the related sector-specific Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions emphasised the necessity to mitigate climate impacts.
When tabled the 2022/23 ministry's budget, Mr Bashe said in efforts to make farmers reduce dependency on rainfall for agriculture, the government has increased budget for irrigation to 51.5bn/- from only 17bn/- set aside during the previous financial year.
He further noted that the ministry through the National Irrigation Commission has continued to implement the 2010 National Policy on Irrigation and its strategies as well as 2018 National Irrigation Plan.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
With this emphasis, by April this year the country managed to cover 727,280 hectares for irrigation farming, equivalent to 60.6 per cent of the 1.2 million hectares target by 2025.
So far, there are a total of 2,773 irrigation schemes, which have led to increased efficiency and crops.
For instance, efficiency has increased in the paddy crop whereby harvest has increased from an average of 2 tonnes per hectare up to 5 tonnes per hectare.
On other hand, maize crop has increased from 1.7 tonnes per hectare to 2 tonnes per hectare.
Onion production increased from 13 tonnes per hectare to 23 tonnes per hectare.
A total of 4,363,683 farmers are benefiting from irrigation schemes established countrywide.
Mr Bashe further noted that application of better farm inputs has increased whereby the use of modern technology has reached 52 per cent in all agriculture activities.
With these measures, the country has managed to assure food security, with statistics indicating that in the 2021/22 the country produced a surplus of 3.8 million tonnes of food crops.
"With this situation the nation has met the food demand by 126 per cent," Mr Bashe stated.
