Agricultural Engineers for Capacitating Food Security in Tanzania

For past three decades, Agricultural Engineering"uhandisi kilimo" professional was definetly unvalued as compared to other engineering fields in Tanzania.The Agricultural Engineers  were absolutely ranked lower as compared to other engineering desciplines. Many employers, both governmental sectors and private companies were interesting to hire Civil Engineers and Mechanical Engineers from University of Dar es salaam (UDSM). Vividly, , I remember in 2005 I was a fresh graduate, BSc.Agricultural Engineer and The Ministry of Agriculture Food Security and Cooperation advertised the employment opportunities. That time,the demand was set to employs 15 Agro Engineers. Very suprising, after the interview 10 posts were given to Civil Engineers (UDSM) and only 5 chances to Agricultural Engineer (SUA). The selection indicated that the system was still considering Civil Engineers are more capable in developing irrigation structures (designing,maintainance and construction). This paradigm turned some of the super Agricultural Engineers including myself, from Sokoine University of Agriculture(SUA) to re-think about searching for employment opportunities in foreign countries such as South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Namibia,Zambia,Europe and States where the field of Agricultural Engineering is highly appreciated. 

     Vice president,Dr. Gharib Bilal investigating the construction of rectangular open irrigation canalin Rungwe, Mbeya.

Vice president,Dr. Gharib Bilal investigating the construction of irrigation dam in Mbeya.

Apparently this is not a case,the truth has been realised that Agricultural Engineers contribute much higher in the strategies of capacitating food production of both smallholder and largescale irrigation schemes in Tanzania. Currently, the agricultural engineers have enabled contruction of high quality irrigation structures for both surface and subsurface irrigation and its return has raised food production by 17.4% (URT,2011).Nowadays, it is very promising that Tanzania can even supply food to her neighbours.The broader contributions of Agricultural Engineers are embedded on their engagements for integrating sustainable technologies that capacitate food production and renewable energies.

Vice president,Dr. Gharib Bilal investigating the pad farm in Rungwe District,Mbeya.

(All Photo,Credited to Muhidin Sufian,Vice president office)

Essentially, their works are dedicated accordingly through their flexibility and interdisciplinary approaches in solving agricultural problems tangled for optimizing water supply in the irrigation schemes and designing affordable technology- mechanisation tools that fit excelently to the demands of smallholder farmers are two types of added advantages. In general, Agricultural Engineers know relatively close the needs and agricultural solutions that can be accessed by our poorest farmers in Tanzania.The Agricultural Engineers have high ability to produce pure and dirty (modification and maintanance) technologies that can be supported and maintained by local skills and tools for maximizing food production. Definetly, I suppose, this could be the reason which influenced our president,Hon.Dr.Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete to re-think about possibilities of involving agricultural engineers in the strategies of capacitating food security in Tanzania. For the future,since water is becoming scarce to some regions in the noth of Tanzania, I would suggests that there are obvious need of involving soft skills in the process of enhancing water resources management in the irrigation structures and re-thinking possibility of exploring groundwater resources for irrigation schemes with emphasis on sustainable irrigation systems such as drip irrigation. Beyond that, the responsible institution has to consider options of recycling nutrients from wastewater inorder to save farmers costs and restoration of losts top soil due to chemical fertilizing.

 Accumulated precipitation time series to some region of Tanzania mainland

The minnor objections which come over the fulfilment of the design criterias for  this kind of earthed  dam.The soil seems to posses high pore water pressure(clay soil) and if you see very closely the dam is constructed with support fill materials only which is partly cemented and the rest joined by clay soil(if not mistaken). I dont see any impervious core layer and its slope erosion protection seems to be very weak. If I calculate the hydrostatic thrust against the slope, bring another dilemma of the designing approach. I think, the construction costs could probably be lowered if the designing approach could consoder the recommended criteria for earthed dam and luckly the construction costs seem to be not very far from the site. The future risks of this dam is about seepage and load that can rises from water and wind waves to the freeboard allowances. The modeling research which I am currently doing,it revealed that in Mbeya, the precipitation is expected to rise in 15 years.This imply that the dam safety dam is under uncertain to sustain the forecasted flooding in 2022 and probably the major solution could be to rebuild.