Kilimokwanza.org  |  From the Field — Iringa Region, March 2026

The Land Is Not the Variable

After four days walking farms across Njombe and Iringa, AGCOT board member
Laurean Rugambwa Bwanakunu came back with a single word for Tanzania’s farmers and its youth —
usimamizi. Management.

Laurean Rugambwa Bwanakunu has been on the AGCOT Centre board for three years.
In that time he has read reports, reviewed strategies, and sat through presentations built on
statistics compiled by people who have not always stood in the fields those statistics describe.
In March 2026, he went to stand in the fields.

Four days across Njombe and Iringa. Farm by farm. Farmer by farmer. At the end of it, standing
in Iringa Region with the visit still fresh, he said something that stopped the room.

“Mimi ninajua mtu namfahamu na ni rafiki yangu. Aliwahi kulima ekari 100.
Akapoteza kila kitu. Kwa sababu hakufuata ushauri wa kitaalam.”

I know someone. A friend of mine. He farmed 100 acres. He lost everything.
Because he did not follow expert advice.

One hundred acres. Everything gone.

Where He Comes From

Before Bwanakunu can talk about farming, he has to talk about cattle. He comes from a pastoral
community. A cattle-keeping people. And for as long as he can remember, his community kept cattle
the traditional way — not as a business, not for profit, but as a symbol of wealth that produced
neither income nor enough food.

“Unakuta mfugaji kakonda, ng’ombe kakonda.”

You find the farmer thin. The cattle thin.

He says it matter-of-factly, but the image carries weight. A man and his herd, both wasting away
together, because the relationship between them has never been structured around production. Around
discipline. Around management.

That image — the thin farmer and the thin cattle — is what he carries into every conversation about
Tanzanian agriculture. It is the starting point. It is what farming looks like without intention.
It is also, he believes, what most Tanzanian farming still looks like. Not because the land is poor.
Not because the farmers are lazy. But because of something harder to fix than either of those things.
A belief.

The Belief That Is Killing the Harvest

“Kuna dhana na kasumba kwamba kilimo sio shughuli rasmi.”

There is a belief — a deep, widespread, culturally embedded belief — that farming
is not a serious occupation.

Bwanakunu does not say this to be provocative. He says it because he has watched it operate, quietly
and consistently, as the single biggest obstacle to agricultural transformation in Tanzania. Not the
roads. Not the seed supply. Not the export certification gaps. The belief.

When a person believes that farming is not serious, they treat it accordingly. They put it to the side.
They hire workers and leave. They do not supervise. They do not follow advice. They do not invest
attention, because attention is reserved for things that matter.

“Mara nyingi kilimo tunakiona kwamba ni shughuli ya pembeni. Hauisimamii wewe mwenyewe
binafsi. Unakuwa na shamba lako, unawaacha watu wanafanya, na husimamii.”

Most of the time we see farming as a side activity. You don’t manage it yourself
personally. You have your farm, you leave people to do it, and you don’t supervise.

This is how his friend farmed 100 acres. And this is how his friend lost everything.

The Only Advice That Matters

Bwanakunu was asked, after four days in the field, what his single message to Tanzanian farmers and
youth would be. He did not say land. He did not say finance. He did not say technology, or export
markets, or cooperative membership. He said one word.

Usimamizi.

Management.

“Ushauri wangu wa swala la kilimo ni usimamizi. Unaposimamia mwenyewe binafsi shamba
lako, ukafuata ushauri wa kitaalam, utapata mafanikio makubwa sana.”

My advice on farming is management. When you personally manage your farm, and you
follow expert advice, you will achieve very great success.

He had just seen that sentence turn into reality. Across Njombe and Iringa, he had walked farms where
people had done exactly this — taken their land seriously, managed it personally, listened to the
agronomists — and the results were sitting there in the fields, visible to anyone who cared to look.

“Tumeona jinsi ambavyo mtu analima ndani ya hekari moja ya apple anapata karibu
milioni 300.”

We saw how someone farming one hectare of apples earns almost TZS 300 million.

One hectare. Three hundred million shillings.

The same land. The same climate. Different management. Different outcome.

The Two Industries That Will Always Pay

Bwanakunu speaks to young people directly and without apology. He believes they have been misled —
not maliciously, but culturally — into thinking that the path to prosperity runs away from the farm.
His counter-argument is not sentimental. It is economic.

“Vijana wanasoma na wanafahamu kuna biashara kubwa mbili duniani ambazo zinalipa.
Biashara ya kwanza ni chakula. Biashara ya pili ni dawa.”

Young people are educated and they know there are two great businesses in the world
that always pay. The first is food. The second is medicine.

He pauses on that. Food and medicine. The two things no human being on earth can survive without.
The two markets that will never disappear, never fall permanently out of demand, never become
irrelevant. And agriculture, he says, sits at the heart of both.

“Kilimo ndio dunia inakoelekea. Ni biashara pekee ambayo kila binadamu anaihitaji.”

Farming is where the world is heading. It is the only business that every human being
needs.

What He Saw in the Youth

The moment that moved Bwanakunu most during the four-day visit was not the TZS 450 million avocado
farmer. It was not the cooperative with a billion-shilling bank loan and zero defaults. It was not the
packhouse shipping certified fruit to five continents. It was the young people.

“Tumeona pia vijana waliojiunga kama kundi na wanalima na wanapata fedha. Nimefurahishwa
sana na hao vijana.”

We also saw young people who came together as a group, farming and earning money. I was
very moved by those young people.

He wants them to become teachers. Not just farmers — teachers. Role models who carry the proof out of
Njombe and Iringa into every other region of Tanzania.

“Ingependeza zaidi waweze kwenda na kuwafundisha vijana wengine mikoa mingine kwamba
kilimo kinalipa.”

It would be even better if they could go and teach other young people in other regions
that farming pays.

Because, he says, the young farmers of the Southern Highlands already have something most people in
Tanzania do not: evidence. They have neighbours who have done it. They have a programme running in their
own region. They do not have to travel far to find proof that the model works.

“Kuna majirani zao wamefanikiwa kwa kulima kisasa. Kwa hiyo hawana mahali pa kwenda
mbali zaidi kujifunza.”

Their neighbours have succeeded through modern farming. They don’t have to go far to
learn.

The Smallest Farm, the Largest Argument

He ends where all good agricultural arguments must end — with a single farmer and a single acre.

“Mkulima yeyote, awe mdogo awe mkubwa, awe na ekari yake moja, anaweza akalisha familia
yake na akasomesha watoto wake kutumia kilimo.”

Any farmer — whether small or large — even with just one acre, can feed their family and
educate their children through farming.

Not if they are lucky. Not if they have connections. If they manage. If they follow advice. If they take
it seriously.

His friend took 100 acres and lost everything. Somewhere in the Ihemi Cluster, a farmer took one hectare
of apples and made TZS 300 million.

The land is not the variable.
The belief is.

Laurean Rugambwa Bwanakunu is a Board Member of AGCOT Centre. He spoke in Iringa Region
following the AGCOT Board’s four-day Ihemi Cluster field visit, 9–12 March 2026. The board subsequently
presented field-verified evidence to Minister Hon. Daniel Chongolo at the Ministry of Agriculture, Dodoma,
13 March 2026.