Delivery mechanisms of agricultural information and knowledge to smallholder farmers in Tanzania: A meta–analysis study

Regardless of concerted interventions and initiatives made to foster agricultural information and knowledge delivery to smallholder farmers, access to these resources remains largely poor in rural Tanzania. To gain insights, the present study examined the delivery mechanisms of agricultural knowledge among smallholder farmers in Tanzania. The study employed a metaanalysis approach where 20 extant studies on agricultural  information and knowledge in Tanzania were reviewed. During data analysis, Microsoft Excel 2010 was used to perform descriptive statistics analyses. The study’s findings reveal that there are various sources and delivery mechanisms of agricultural information and knowledge to the smallholder farmers in Tanzania. The findings further expose that there is no consensus on channels that are most suitable for delivering these resources to rural areas. While some prior studies show mass media as predominant sources, others inform that oral information and knowledge delivery mechanism are a prime sources and channels. Besides, the study reveals that rural Tanzania is not immune to factors that constrain delivery of agricultural information and knowledge. Factors like lack of communication tools, illiteracy, irrelevance of content, packaging information using languages farmers are not conversant with, lack of power supply, and limited income limit information and knowledge delivery and access. To speed up agricultural information and knowledge penetration to smallholder farmers in rural Tanzania, farmers groups, demonstration plots,  farmers’ field study tours, agricultural shows and NGOs are recommended as sources and channels. Keywords: Agricultural knowledge, agricultural information, knowledge delivery mechanisms, Tanzani

Crop production upgrading strategies and their role for household food security in Chamwino District, Tanzania

Food insecurity is still a challenge affecting many people in the world, whereby the majority live in developing countries in Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. In Sub-Saharan Africa, many who are food insecure are poor smallholder farmers in rural areas who depend on rain-fed agriculture for food and income. In Tanzania, the Trans-SEC project was implemented from the year 2014-2018 to promote site-specific and adapted upgrading strategies (UPS) in crop production to improve rural agricultural systems along the food value chains for enhancing smallholder farmers’ food security. This study assesses the roles of such strategies for food security among smallholder farmers relying on rain-fed agriculture in two villages in semi-arid Chamwino district in Dodoma region, Tanzania. I draw on data from four gender-segregated focus group discussions as well as 54 interviews with both women and men in 33 purposively selected households that have adopted UPS for enhancing soil water management and crop production. The two UPS considered in this paper are rainwater harvesting using tied-ridges as well as kitchen gardens. My findings show that farmers are still food insecure although they report improvements in terms of food stocks on average now lasting for eight months instead of six months, enhanced consumption of vegetables, and little incomes. The limited impact on food security from tied-ridge can be traced to low and erratic rainfall, especially during the sowing period in December, as well as limited expansion of the tied-ridges beyond the testing plots due to the heavy work involved in making the ridges using hand hoes. I argue that these upgrading strategies would have had a more positive impact on the food security of these households if rainfall had been enough for crops to mature. To achieve long-term successes in semi-arid areas, upgrading strategies like tied-ridge should integrate irrigation practices using additional water sources than rainwater

Determinants of Cost to Client in Accessing Rural Financial Services – A Case of Zambia's Chongwe District

Providing affordable access to appropriate financial services for the low-income population has been an on-going challenge for most developing nations, Zambia included. On this premise, this paper seeks to empirically investigate and quantify costs to clients in accessing financial services in the rural areas of Zambia, based on cross-sectional primary data collected in the Chongwe district from 236 households, documentation and key informant interviews. This study used the Probit and Heckman selection models to analyse cost to the client factors affecting the likelihood of accessing financial services (credit) by rural households in Zambia. Results revealed that households’ costs incurred by clients in accessing financial services are not limited to financial costs such interest, fees, transport and savings, etc., but equally other hidden costs such regulatory and compliance costs, economic costs, psychological costs, and social and cultural costs. The study recommends that policy formulation in the areas of financial inclusion, rural and agricultural finance should be based on reducing cost-to-client attributes such as the regulatory and compliance costs, economic costs and psychological costs identified above. Keywords: costs to client, financial services, access to finance, Heckman two-stage model

Determinants of cost to client in accessing rural financial services : a case of Zambia's Chongwe District

Despite widespread acknowledgement that financial inclusion plays a vital role in the general livelihoods of low income populations, the majority of the global population remains without adequate access to affordable financial services. The World Bank estimates that approximately 2.5 billion of the global population do not have access to financial services, with the majority of them residing in rural areas .To this effect, in recent years, there has been an increase in both theoretical and empirical literature on financial accessibility studies in rural areas that seek to ascertain the various factors that affect access to financial inclusion which have cited high direct cost- to- client in accessing financial services as a one of the prominent factors hindering financial inclusion. Notwithstanding various intervention measures to address the high direct costs associated with access to finance, which include lowering interest rates and bank fees, transport costs and other associated transaction costs, generally clients’ costs to access financial services remain high. However, to effectively address this cost problem, there is a need to understand how it is constituted. As hypothesized, in addition to the known direct costs mentioned above there are other hidden costs that determine the overall cost to the client in accessing financial services which may have a profound effect on the client. These include psychological costs, economic costs and regulatory and compliance costs On this premise, this paper seeks to empirically investigate and identify the overall costs to clients in accessing financial services in the rural areas of Zambia. These factors are important in facilitating smooth policy formulation in the areas of financial inclusion, and rural and agricultural finance. Cross sectional primary data from 232 household was used for this study. Probit and the Heckman selection models were used to analyze cost to the client factors affecting the likelihood of accessing financial services (credit) by rural households. Lessons from the theory of the firm stipulate that the client’s costs of accessing financial services are driven by utility maximization under the agency costs theory. This is attributed to the fact that both the principal (financial service provider) and the agent’s (client) behaviour is driven by the need to maximize the utility associated with accessing and provision of credit services (financial services). Depending on the clients’ perception of the utility they are likely to derive from the ability to access and use credit services (financial services), a decision is made, either to access or not. This client behavior that leads to a discrete choice to be made is modeled in a logical sequence, starting with the decision to access credit services, and then followed by a decision on the cost channel to access to credit services (financial services).Dissertation (MScAgric)--University of Pretoria, 2015.tm2015Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural DevelopmentMScAgricUnrestricte

Natural gas conflict in Tanzania and the impacts to the population of Mtwara municipality

The study explored the problem of Natural gas conflict and their impact to the society in Tanzania by examining the case of Mtwara Municipality which is located in Mtwara region. Specifically, it assessed the trend and the extent of Natural gas conflict, their impact to the society and possible interventions to be made. Data were collected from local and national government sources including leaders, politicians, traditional healers, various community members, youths, elders, religious leaders and police officers. Questionnaires and interviews were used to collect information about the study. The study findings shows that, the conflict over natural gas is resulted by unfulfilled promises of government, natural gas transfer from Mtwara to Dar-es-salaam, inconsiderate and exclusive political agenda, Lack of information or education on natural gas project and lack of commitment of the government that resulted youth and the community of Mtwara to rally against the government after many measures taken to address the problem by the government has failed. These include providing education to the society on natural gas project, establish the development investment in Mtwara, To stop the project of transferring natural gas by pipe line to Dar-es-Salaam, the government to avoid the use of forces to resist the society. Therefore, this study recommends that, the central as well as local governments should take serious measures like education to the society, practice real benefit to Mtwara community following natural gas discovery, policies should be established which favour the local society on natural gas benefit also the government should be transparency on various community project and then the NGO have to be made to try to make various initiatives to provide an understand to the people about natural gas. Lastly it suggests some areas for further researchers solving the problem of natural gas conflict.M-I