THE Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism for Tanzania, Prof. Jumanne Maghembe, has called upon forest experts from Africa to educate small holder farmers and forest communities about carbon credits trade in order to assure them of income that would reduce their actions that negatively impact on forests. 

Prof. Maghembe was speaking while officiating the Second African Regional Conference of Forest and Farm Producer Organizations meeting currently being held in Morogoro region. With the theme - Strengthening Forest and Farm Producers’ Organizations in a Changing Climate’  the meeting attracts with participants from 16 countries from across the African continent.

“Farmers can’t sustainably use their forest resources if they don’t have assurance of their livelihoods and income,” he said adding: “Very few experts and communities know how carbon credits are calculated or even sold. So it’s important for you the experts to help farmers to access markets so that they can have an option for income as they wait for their trees to grow they can earn income from the carbon markets.”

The Natural Resources and Tourism Minister said that it’s important to move farmers to another level of development to be able to cope with challenges that are currently there including climate change effects. “Climate change isn’t necessarily the only cause. People abuse the management of natural resources and hence exacerbate the problem of climate change. Therefore it’s important to work seriously on the models that improve income for small holders especially those who live in the margins of forests in order to mitigate the problem,” Prof. Maghembe added.

Food Security Improvement and Poverty Alleviation

On his part, the Country Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Fred Kafeero, appreciated the Government of Tanzania’s acceptance to host the meeting saying that the meeting is part of efforts to improve food security and poverty alleviation in the continent.

“The meeting is in pursuit of improving food security, poverty alleviation and sustainable management of natural resources which are our global goals. The main purpose is to support forest and farm producers in order to ensure sustainable utilization and management of forest resources,” he said.

Mr. Kafeero said that FAO together with other key partners (such as the Forest and Farm Facility, hosted by FAO) has established partnerships with a range of international institutions and NGOs at regional and national levels for the same purpose and that in addition, they’re currently running the Action Against Desertification Project in support of the Great Green Wall, which supports small holders on sustainable management of their tourist and land resources. “We assemble here to share experiences from the continent and that we’ve no doubt that together we’ll move out of here with common points for exploring more opportunities for forest and farm producer organizations in developing innovative business models that will strengthen the resilience of forest producers and farmers against climate change,” Mr. Kafeero explained.

By doing that we shall contribute to national development plans in our respective countries and some wider development agenda, he added.  

The Morogoro meeting, whose main objective is to provide a platform for forest and farm producer organizations for exchanging experiences on business, innovation, youth and gender; is hosted by the Tanzania National Network of Farmers Groups (MVIWATA) and the National Tree Growers Association of Tanzania

It was preceded by a three-day field tour to Iringa region where the participants were able to visit forest and farm producer associations and their activities in the field.

It is organized by FAO, the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF), the Action Against Desertification Project, International Family Forest Alliance (IFFA), We Effect, Finnish Farmers, Forest Owners and Rural Entrepreneurs Organisation and Agri-Agency for Food and Forest Development (MTK/FFD), Farm Forestry Smallholder Producers Association of Kenya (FF-SPAK), The Network for Natural Gums and Resins in Africa (NGARA), Africa Forest Enterprises Connect Network (AFECONET), African Union Commission and sponsors/donors.

Background

The 2nd African conference of Forest and Farm Producer Organisations (FFPOs) is a follow-up to the first one held in Kenya in June, 2015 with participation of forest producer organisations and forest stakeholders from several African countries and partners involved in various Africa-level initiatives such as Africa’s Great Green Wall, the Network for Natural Gums and Resins in Africa.

The Nairobi Conference identified lack of capacity of forest producer organisations, gender in-equality and low youth participation as major constraints in developing sustainable forest management and vibrant climate resilient smallholder forest product value chains in Africa. Promoting gender equity and youth participation in forest related activities and in the work and governance of FFPOs is vital to the development of strong FFPOs in Africa.

The key recommendations of the participants to Governments were to recognize: the necessity to include forest small holders, including youth and women, in national and global policy development; members of forest producer organizations as Small and Medium Enterprises and hence part of the growing private sector; and the serious Climate Change threat to our lives as well as the great and large scale climate change mitigation and adaptation function our forest producer groups can provide by recovering the forest/agricultural landscapes and promoting ecosystem services.