Sep 22, 2011 (All Africa Global Media - MARKET for agricultural produced goods continues to be a thorn in a flesh to most of the farmers in the country, a situation which hinders poverty alleviation efforts culminating more women in Tanzania to sail in abject poverty.
At the just ended Gender Festival organized by FemAct in collaboration with other organizations fighting for human rights, participants raised their concerns on the matter, calling for immediate intervention by policy makers to rescue farmers. Most of the farmers in Tanzania are women and they are the most affected whenever market becomes a problem. Various testimonies adduced by women at the festival were revolving around the land issue versus market for the produced goods.
Farmers Network in Tanzania (MUVIWATA) representative Ms Marcelina Charles expressed her concern over the conflicts between farmers and authorities in various districts on the market centres insisting that the conflict of interest by some officials was a stumbling block. MUVIWATA deals with farmers rights especially on issues of land and market for agricultural produced goods.
"There is a farm called Kigado in Morogoro Region, where local farmers are being displaced to give room for an investor, a situation which has rendered most of women landless and homeless including facing torture and other inhuman acts that are exercised by the police", says Ms Charles. According to her, the delay of some land based cases by most of the courts in the country worsened peoples lives especially women, children and People with Disabilities (PWDs). Ms Charles says the judiciary should look on the necessary measures to fast track cases in the courts so as to ensure that women dispense their duties to earn their daily bread.
Professor Dzodzi Tsikata from Ghana noted that as most women in the third world countries depends on agriculture in order to earn their income, it was high time to make sure that ownership of land by women was prioritized and given its due importance. "Women are important factors for an entire nation, and without women there could be no progress. Therefore, let us not undermine the role of women", says the professor. Prof Dzodzi proposes that governments in African countries including Tanzania should give financial support to farmers in order to make the lands productive. She insists that it is not the commercial farmers who produce for the nation but communal farmers who need to be supported.
"Life commences at the land level and life comes from the land, it is as well the products that emanate from the land that make business for any nation", she adds. Another woman who expressed her dissatisfaction on land was Emelia Kimaro from West Kilimanjaro in Siha District, Kilimanjaro Region who said they were forced to vacate their residential areas without being resettled to another area.
"We were chased by the police to move from West Kilimanjaro Forest, and now we have no place to live, we are starving and we don't know our destiny, she insisted.
You can read this article in original on AllAfrica.com.