In Tanzania last week, I saw farmers – men, women, widows, the sick and the old – who every day have a life and death struggle to feed themselves and their families on pieces of land only a little bigger than a nice suburban garden. One acre or less, a handful of wooden tools and their hard work, resolute courage and burning life force is all they have.

Improving farming methods

I met Hamisa Ali Luyenda and his wife Zawadi in Arusha, a remote village in Mtwara, Southern Tanzania. Hamisa has doubled his crop yield on his half acre of sandy earth recently. Concern Tanzania has developed a food security programme together with partner NGOs and local government introducing new methods of cultivation, better seeds and new equipment. It has brought community trainers and farm field schools to Arusha to show better ways of growing corn, sorghum, and sesame.

Hamisa has been a good student. He has half an acre and does a bit of fishing in the nearby lake. This is his total source of food and income. Handsome, strong and confident, but like nearly all the men in the village he was small, shorter than me at 5ft – the consequence of generations growing up with insufficient nutrition. The only man taller than me – the government agricultural worker Mr. Mwaka – was from outside the village.

Medieval tools

Hamisa has doubled his crop using the new methods – planting in rows, using better seeds and more fertilizer. He has done so much hard work, and is proud of his achievements. It has enabled him to buy a new canoe for fishing, but he is also angry. Speaking through our translator he said “wait here”, went back to his hut and on his return threw his tools down on the mat – “see here this is what I have to work with!” And there in front of me were medieval implements. “I need new tools” he explained “then I can grow more”.

He took us to visit his fields and the nearby lake. There, the fishermen were returning with their catch – tiny little fish, precious protein to be eaten, or most likely sold, so that roofs can be repaired, and clothes, soap, oil and salt can be bought.

It is a lack of resources that is holding Tanzania back. It is a country without conflict, with universal free primary education. The government is democratic, and now with help, has made secondary education free.

Raise our voices

We in the rich world must raise our voices, to back up the voices of Hamisa and others like him, and must shout very loud!  It is obscene, unjust, outrageous, that Hamisa and Zawadi, their village, their country, do not get sufficient support to be able to grow themselves out of poverty. It can be done; it just needs more money and resources at every level. The people, the community, the government all need to be supported in their determined efforts.

Our government, and others of the rich world must now build a new Marshall plan for Africa, so that every farmer has what he or she needs; better seeds, good tools, enough fertilizer – enabling them to grow enough to feed their families, to make them healthy and able to study, make choices and maybe create a new Tanzanian “Tiger” economy.