A policy paper entitled: “New climate, new agriculture: How agroforestry contributes to meeting the challenges of agricultural development”, Tanzania is listed among African countries worst affected by climate change impacts and vulnerability, and having the least adaptive capacities.

“The country is lagging in achieving its targets on reducing poverty and food insecurity, and in achieving the Millennium Development Goals,” the paper read in part. “Tanzania faces the challenge of revitalizing her agricultural sector by improving the natural resource base: soil, water and biodiversity.”

The use of fertilizer and improved seeds in Tanzania is very low compared to other countries. According to proceedings of the Agricultural inputs stakeholder workshop held at Oasis Hotel Morogoro in 2007, Tanzanian farmers use an average of 9 kg per hectare annually, of nitrogen fertilizer, while Malawian farmers use 27 kg Nitrogen per Hectare and in Vietnam the average is 365 kg of Nitrogen per hactare per year.

While the Tanzanian government has in place efforts to overcome the declining soil fertility problem, the increasing fertilizer prices make the initiative quite costly. In the past three years fertilizer prices have more than doubled.

For the 2008/2009, the government is issuing agricultural input vouchers (fertilizers and improved seeds) to 2,600,000 farm families out of over 4,000,000 in the country, expected to cost the country $26 million (Tshs 31 billion).

Fertilizer users

Although the government has been involved in distributing fertilizer and seeds to smallholders and encouraging private traders to do the same, less than 20 per cent of small holder farmers use fertilizer, according to the study,.

The World Agroforestry Centre, therefore, proposes policies to help produce food more cheaply and in environmentally sustainable ways will benefit most farmers and the country as a whole.

“Incorporating agroforestry systems into national agricultural development programmes offers more affordable and sustainable sources of soil nutrients through deep soil extraction and nitrogen fixation. Current policies do not take advantage of these promising technologies,” the paper said. “The integration of trees in agricultural landscapes, offers robust options to improve productivity and achieve environmental sustainability.”

The World Agroforestry Centre has identified the vast area of dryland, covering most of Dodoma and Singida Regions as well as western regions of Tabora, Shinyanga, Kigoma and Mwanza, as areas that need scaling-up agroforestry technologies.

“The intensification and diversification functions of agroforestry practices strengthen the socio-economic resilience of rural populations to climate change,” the paper reads. “Trees and other integrated soil fertility management approaches in order to make the most efficient use of expensive mineral fertilizers.”