Constraints to agricultural sustainability in Tanzania: an economic analysis of the case of Ruvuma region.

The problem which this study has investigated relates to the deterioration of the natural environment in the agricultural sector. The environment and natural resources in Tanzanian agriculture are at cross-roads. Environmental degradation is becoming a nuisance and a serious obstacle to the economic growth and development of the country. The expanding aggregate demand together with other poverty driven factors have disrupted the traditional farming systems and resource management in Tanzania thus, increasing even further the intensity of the constraints to agricultural sustainability. The increasing pace of environmental degradation in Tanzania raises a number of questions. Among them are, what are the costs of remedial measures; whether or not the farming systems are oriented towards protecting long term ecological benefits; what are the major constraints to sustainability and whether or not state policy has any role in influencing the management of the natural environment. These questions define the objectives of this study. Although market imperfection is a central theoretical theme associated with degradation of the natural environment, this analysis is primarily based on the constrained optimization theory where the optimizer faces the inequality constraints which are flexible in that he is free to utilize different levels of resource quantities. Three methods have been adopted. A descriptive analysis based on a counter factual approach has been adopted to investigate the 'time perspective paradigm' of the farming systems in Ruvuma region. Using farm budget analysis the study attempts to evaluate costs of different farming technologies. Based on the farm budget analysis a comparative approach has been used to establish the difference between conventional and sustainable farming systems in terms of investment requirements and income generation capacities. Linear Programming farm models have been constructed to investigate constraints to the adoption of sustainable farming technologies. The empirical findings show that there is substantial evidence of the deterioration of the resource base in agriculture, and that state policy has apparently tended to accelerate environmental problems. Smallholder farmers on the other hand, tended to take a long term perspective where ecological benefits and intergenerational equity are priority objectives in their planning horizons. The findings further reveal that, in the short run, the cost of sustainable farming is higher compared to cost requirements in the conventional farming system. Findings also reveal that labor supply and farm capital are the major resource constraints to sustainable agriculture. Based on these findings the following recommendations can be made. Firstly, the immediate research needs lie in the utilization of the existing indigenous capacity and knowledge. Farmers have substantial contribution to scientists and researchers in the country. Secondly, there is an urgent need to develop and promote agricultural based industries in order to relieve agricultural labor and farm capital constraints. The initiatives by Peramiho Missionaries on sunnhemp do not seem to be appreciated by way of encouraging non governmental organizations to promote this important technology. The government could have assisted by dispatching researchers and agricultural experts to Peramiho to explore this technology. Furthermore, there is no evidence of other hilly areas where the ngoro farming system is used in spite of the fact that this method has been in existence for more than 90 years.