Nane Nane

Banana wine tastes like fizzy vinegar. Rosella beer can be home brewed. Cashew nuts come from hand-sized heart-shaped orange-coloured fruit which can be used to make jam (see photo). They are so expensive because of the huge amount of manual labour involved in cracking their two shells. Monsanto is carrying out “suicide” crop trials in the Dodoma region. The rice crops may be genetically modified to cope with drought, but the seeds are patented and called “suicide” seeds because they do not reproduce themselves, forcing farmers to continuously purchase stocks. Besides this the farming techniques required for these crops will create dependence on imported farming machinery. The Bill Gates Foundation and Tanzanian’s government may well back the idea but will the local farmers a few years down the line?

These are some of the interesting facts I learn at this year’s Agricultural Fair, Nane Nane, on the 8th of August. Hundreds of stalls where government organizations and NGOs exhibit their agricultural initiatives across Tanzania, there is plenty of food, live music and dancing and a speech from the man himself: President Kikwete. Farmers roam about with their machetes, similar to the WFP donations to Rwanda in the 1990s. Regular citizens come to shop and watch the sleepy caged zoo animals. I meet a group of western American missionaries called the Cowboys for Christ who are introducing plastic containers for grain in the Kondoa region. Nick chuckles when he hears me complement a man on his ‘costume’, especially his cowboy hat and pointy heeled boots. “Oh, this is no costume sweetheart!” he replies adjusting his huge shiny belt and leather cuffs. (Gulp).