From: Yona Maro
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choppy-waters-for-europe.pdf
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Most of the population in Tanzania, ca 80%, live in a reality of farming. In practice this means farming by hand, using a hoe, and depending on the rains to water the crops. Farmers typically use some of their crop for their own food and sell some in the local market, or sell to middlemen who pay very low prices and take the profits themselves. Cash crops for exports tend to be grown on large farms, benefiting only a few. Many crops that small farmers can grow and that could be exported are bulky or perishable and cheap, so that the prices can’t cover the cost of transport. But there is a crop that is easy to grow on marginal soil, light, valuable and in increasing demand in Europe: organic spices.
Tanzania grows enough spices for the entire East African region: they are sold on as far as Comoros, the DRC and Zambia. Zanzibar is known as ‘the Spice Island’ and its cuisine reflects the Tanzanian spice harvest: cardamon, cinnamon, chili, vanilla, turmeric, ginger, cloves and black pepper are delicious to eat and valuable to sell. However, African and Asian traders and consumers are looking for cheap spices without necessarily caring about high quality. European consumers, on the other hand, are conscious of the effects of their purchases on the environment, their health and the living standards of producers, and are willing to pay more for organic and fair trade products. Most spices don’t grow in Europe, so they have to be imported. Europeans are changing their eating habits and cooking with more spices. So wouldn’t it be great for African small-scale spice farmers to sell organic spices to Europe?
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What is ‘organic’?
According to IFOAM, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture . . .
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read or d/l pdf document;
choppy-waters-for-europe.pdf
428K