Decentralisation, Small Farmers and Sustainability.

Abstract

NTSP is a seed programme with advanced facilities and well-educated staff. It is decentralised when seen from above, it has centralised and decentralised elements when seen from within. This set-up has resulted in an expensive but well-functioning centre, which is able to produce large amounts of seed, and conduct training at a high level. Sustainable provision of appropriate seed from NTSP depends on the financial and organisational sustainability of the programme. As the programme has not yet achieved financial and organisational sustainability, it has not yet ensured sustainable provision of seed. The strategies outlined for the programme have been based on the assumption that the three issues decentralisation, benefiting small farmers directly and sustainability are not compatible. This assumption, which is contrary to many theories about decentralisation, has never been questioned, nor has it been tested in practice. The results of this study suggest that the three goals are compatible also in the case of NTSP. As the donor has phased out its financial support to NTSP in 1999, the programme is now in a difficult situation where it is forced to transform from being a costly government supported programme to becoming a more or less financially independent low cost enterprise. This will probably imply that financial sustainability will remain the guiding principle for the programme strategy in the future. This may hopefully lead NTSP to address small farmers more directly, and to become more decentralised as viewed from below. Even then it will be difficult for NTSP to reach a state where incomes cover expenditures unless the Government of Tanzania continues and increases its financial support, and/or another donor is found who is willing to provide financial support for NTSP’s important activities. Several lessons can be learnt for tree seed programmes in the future. First, the exact nature of services provided by a tree seed centre should be based on careful assessments of what the target groups consider as their needs. Such assessment must take regional, social, gender and other differences into account. With regard to seed distribution, small farmers should be approached directly, and their potential as seed customers should be tried out. Experience with such approaches has already been made in Kenya, Uganda, and Burkina Faso (Holding and Omondi, 1998; Nkiema and Balima, 1999).