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EMAIL: nmathiasi@yahoo.com
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Abstract
into the world market economy. The process involves intensive and extensive
suffers chronic post harvest food losses estimated at between 30-40 %. Value
addition to the farm produce will contribute immensely not only in alleviation of
post harvest losses and enhancement of our food security situation, but also
raw material producer/ exporter to high value producer/ exporter with high
coordination among the various stakeholders is done. Over the years, the
produce with notable success. This paper explains the process used in
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developing the technologies, challenges faced, experience learned and proposes
measures and strategies which can be put in place to stimulate the availability of
1.0 Introduction:
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Agriculture accounts for 30-50% of GDP in most African countries and 70% or
move Africa out of poverty to better living standards of its people. In Tanzania,
the agricultural sector is the key to Tanzania’s economic development, now and
about 50% (Rweyemamu, 2003; Shayo, 2006), contributing to over 50% of the
agriculture for their livelihoods. The sector is important for Tanzania’s efforts
towards poverty reduction and ensuring food security while meeting the
developing world and Tanzania in particular, rural poverty still remains one of
the challenges facing the developing countries. Small holder farmers face
have been decreasing over the years, markets increasingly becoming more
create many more non-farm commercial opportunities for the poor farmers.
Small holder farmers need to commercialize their farming activities which will
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The Poverty and Human Development Report 2005 point out that “to promote
processing and marketing. This paper describes the attempt that TEMDO has
made in solving some of the constraints of the small holder farmer through
The small holder farmer is faced with the challenge to improve income in
improved farming techniques like improved plant varieties and other farm
inputs. This will normally lead to more crop production with subsequent food
security. However this process will not ensure increased income to the farmer
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competitiveness through product differentiation and the development of niche
markets (Lundy et al., 2002). Small holder farmers must move fast away from
diversification beyond food security and include both farm and non farm
activities for income generation. Studies have found that in Latin America,
some 40% of rural incomes are now non– agricultural while up to 80% of the
(Lundy et al., 2002). It has also been reported that value adding activities are
retain most of the value paid by the customer which is normally taken by
small farms and small food processing firms have a competitive advantage over
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• Value addition in agriculture involves adding features to a raw
does not only produce and sell raw agricultural commodity but is also
• Value added agriculture involves the processing of food and nonfood raw
• When a small holder farmer moves from planting and harvesting a crop,
oil and animal feed this process is considered to be value adding. This
Farmers must get more involved in the food chain in order to realize the profits
generated along the food chain. Farmers must move up the food chain (Born
and Bachman, 2006). As it is today, the farmer’s business ends with selling of
the raw farm produce. The farmer is hardly aware of the long process which his
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produce passes before reaching the ultimate customer. Worse still he does not
know how much profit the middlemen are taking along the food chain. In order
for the Tanzanian farmers to reap the profits of their ‘‘hard work,
entrepreneurial spirit and thrift’’ (Mbogoro, D., 2008), they must engage
themselves in processing and value adding activities rather than just selling
The agricultural industry in the United States provides a good example and
experience of the need for farmers to move up the food chain. In the United
States, the food grown on the farm follows the chain involving transporting,
processing, storage and distribution to the market for sale. As this chain of
activities gets diversified, the farmer’s share of the price paid by the consumer
market, with the other 80 percent going to those who transported, processed,
stored, distributed, advertised and marketed the foods (Born and Bachman,
2006) As the farmer gets more involved in some of the food chain activities his
share of what the consumer’s pay for their food becomes bigger. The farmer
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The diversification and modernization of the present agricultural and other
food commodities after harvest is also aimed at minimizing the losses during
allied produces may bring a wide range of benefits to the people in this
units.
value” to raw agricultural products will definitely grow. The value of farm
and packaging.
agriculture, provide food consistency, create new jobs in rural areas, prevent
product damage and loss, make optimum use of resources, and preserve
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The agricultural labour force is typically fully employed during key seasons,
times of the year. If non-farm activities can be taken up during slack periods,
then this can add to labor productivity without detracting from other sectors of
the economy.
The farm processing and value adding activities in agriculture take raw
agricultural products (such as sunflower seeds) and turn them into food or non
food products that are consumed every day (like cooking oil or animal feed).
imported produce from countries with developed industry. The strength of the
Tanzanian agricultural sector lies in the ability of the farmers to produce high
quality produce and products. This will only be possible through the use of
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appropriate technology right from the farming stage through processing to
6.0 Challenges facing farmers in agro processing and value added agriculture
The farm processing and value adding activities faces a variety of challenges
market does not provide any incentive to encourage value addition of the crop.
Thus, farmers do not see any need to engage in value addition initiatives. In
under the free market framework have not been able to promote agro
processing in the country. The challenges facing the farmers are often
The other challenge facing the small scale farmer is lack of readily available
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agricultural sector, improper packaging and insufficient mechanized
industries. The small farmers have limited knowledge of the opportunities for
Formal financial services are generally unavailable in rural areas. For most
generally, interest rates on loans are relatively high. At the same time, although
the land law has been reviewed, small holder farmers are still unable to use
their land as collateral to access finance since most of them do not have the
right to ownership of the land they cultivate. The absence of formal channels of
finance in rural areas limits the number of small holder farmers who can
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7.0 Technologies for agro processing and value addition
Since its inception in year 1982, the Tanzania Engineering and Manufacturing
most of the technologies have been in the agro-processing sector. Using various
to the targeted end users. However the level of commercialization is not yet
and sale, batch level or pilot manufacture and sale. TEMDO will be successful
when the developed technologies are made available in the local market to as
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• Market opportunity
The tool normally used to analyze the target group or market is the
particular technology.
• Technology
TEMDO carries out the design and development of the technology. After
obtain views from the users on the suitability of the technology and area
manuals and a business plan for the technology in order to convince the
own.
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• The Manufacturing SMEs
TEMDO in consultation with other stake holders will deal with marketing
will include publicizing and demonstrating the technology with the aim of
• Withdrawal
When the private manufacturing SMEs have reached a stage where they
TEMDO has to withdraw from the process. The manufacturing SMEs will
may demand.
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dissemination of appropriate technologies. Over the years, TEMDO has
addition of agricultural produce such as fruit and vegetable processing, seed oil
processing, honey processing, grain or seed dressing and milk processing with
notable success.
Some of the various value adding activities and technologies (machinery and
equipment) for adding value to farm produce in Tanzania include the following:
packaging
Fruit Juices and preparation, wash, peel, fruit cleaner, peeling machine,
Pulps cut, press, pulp, sieve, cutting machine, fruit chopper, fruit
sources, syrups,
Honey extraction, pressing, honey extractor, honey press, honey
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filtration, boiling, filtering tank, honey strainers, boiling
Dairy Products: milk, cheese, yoghurt, butter churn, ice cream making
locally produced and locally repaired, reliable technology that has a suitable
size and complexity of operation for the people who will operate it. For most
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value-added technology, the critical issue is developing that technology so it is
should be based on the needs of the local environment. This should include the
resource base of enterprises, the support facilities available to them and the
Technologies developed at TEMDO faces stiff competition from cheap and sub-
standard imported machinery from other countries. Due to the low purchasing
power of the Tanzanian entrepreneurs, they opt for the cheap imported
are never taken up to pilot level for viability testing. This has led to premature
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9.0 Challenges and constraints of agro-processing and value addition to
farm produce
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• Increased reliance on the part of many producers on imported raw
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Agriculture continues to be the mainstay of the economy of Tanzania. It
remains the major source of rural employment and the driving force behind its
economic growth. The globalization forces has opened up opportunities for new
markets of its products and on the other hand exposed the country to greater
are perceived to be of higher quality than those grown and processed in this
products to higher qualities for marketing, distribution and trade. The following
Tanzania:
rural level for creating dynamic agribusiness sector in rural areas adding
packaging industries;
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• Design and development of specialized transport vehicles with cooling
processing industries;
skills
enter the inevitable competition. The future lies in the ability to market
processing technologies.
• The Government should support the strategic plan for setting up and
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processing units located close to production centers should process and
preserve products such as dairy, meat, pickles, sun flower oil, vegetables,
constant supply of the right raw products with the qualities desired by
end users.
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11.0 References
4. Lundy, M., C.F. Ostertag and R. Best (2002) “Value Adding Agro Enterprise
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