How climate-smart farming is changing the commercial landscape of rural Tanzania
Business Farmer of the quarter: Andrew Fungo
Andrew Fungo is a rice farmer from the Usangu Valley in Mbarali, southern Tanzania. He speaks with the eloquence and flair of an evangelist.
“One who does not prepare for change cannot make progress even if he desires it.”
As a devout Lutheran, Andrew leads his village church’s weekly sermons. Yet Andrew says he has also grown a new faith over the past 10 years. During that time, his plots of rice farmland have yielded bountiful harvest after bountiful harvest - despite many other farmers in the valley seeing shrinking returns due to increasingly unpredictable rain patterns. For this, he credits his newfound belief in Climate-Smart Agriculture.
“Farmers using traditional rice farming practices have been crying. The rains are meager and not as predictable as they used to be. Those of us who have embraced Climate-Smart Agriculture have seen our harvests double and triple. We are better prepared for change, so we are the ones making progress.”
Effects of climate change
The effects of climate change in Mbarali have hurt small-scale farmers the most. With a population heavily dependent on rain for agriculture, drastic changes in rainfall patterns have translated into life-altering productivity and income losses. Farmers say they used to be able to forecast the rainy season reliably; less so over the past 10 to 20 years. This means they cannot reliably predict the best time to prepare the land, plant, and manage their farms. Additionally, rivers like the mighty Ruaha that once roared through the rice-farming valley have desperately dwindled in volume.
“If it was not for the training we received on climate-smart agriculture, I do not know where I would be today. Every method I use in my farming today: from the improved seeds, fertilizer, modern techniques in water management, herbicides, pesticides, and using machines in growing and harvesting - all these things have meant I can stay one step ahead of climate change. I am not crying in pain, waiting for rain.”
From traditional to climate-smart farming
Norges Vel has funded training for farmers like Andrew on the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) as a combined climate-smart approach to curb the challenges posed by climate change. SRI employs farming methods that promote efficient irrigation of 30% - 50% less water, the reduction of inorganic fertilizers and other inputs, and the use of improved quality, higher-yield seeds. Through it, they have introduced SARO-5, a drought-resistant variant of rice that requires less water and land than local varieties grown in Mbarali.
Its crop is also better able to withstand flooding and other kinds of storms averting unnecessary loss. Andrew and other farmers no longer need much water to farm. Now he can plant using a five-kilogram bag of seed on a single acre, and each improved seed provides him with many sprouts. SRI has enabled farmers like Andrew to increase their productivity and has allowed their crops to be more resilient to climate change and variability, while simultaneously mitigating it through lessening rice production’s contribution to climate change by minimizing emissions.
Sharing knowledge
These approaches are aligned with the global sustainable development goals particularly the goal to eradicate poverty. What a rice farmer in Mbarali needs is different from what others may need elsewhere in the world. SRI is holistic and provides customized solutions to location-specific problems. Directly involving farmers like Andrew and his peers ensures that the system works contextually and sustainably. “Education and training taught us how to live in the reality of things. At the markets, the farmers who adopt climate-smart agriculture do not shed the same tears as those of the traditional farmer when prices go down. Climate-smart farmers are more resilient to shocks when they happen."
Climate-smart agriculture yields results
A business farmer who practices climate-smart agriculture, can absorb the cost of a market downturn after getting three times the crop yield of a farmer who does not. The CS farmer will have 30 bags of rice for every ten bags a traditional farmer has. Climate smart techniques will allow this farmer to know what to do, how and when to do it.
“And it’s not just about my rice and my farm. I have raised three children: two boys, and one girl. I have bought one-acre of land: half an acre for additional farmland and a half-acre construction plot. I have installed electricity at home and on my construction site.”
Climate-smart agriculture is not a secret Andrew wants to keep. Just as he passionately shares the good news as an evangelist, he eagerly shares the new knowledge he has obtained. For example, this year, many Mbarali farmers did not cultivate their farms because of a local belief that years ending in uneven numbers do not have sufficient rainfall. Andrew encouraged and trained a small group of farmers on climate-smart techniques, explaining that while these approaches may have worked well before, they have become unreliable due to a rapidly changing global climate.
Andrew says: “I want every small-scale farmer in Mbarali to know - we can thrive even when the rains don’t come as expected. We can thrive despite climate change. I want every farmer to sell, sell, sell like me.”