By ADAM IHUCHA--Her name isn’t in the Guinness World records of 2014, but for thousands of horticultural growers in Tanzania, Jacqueline Mkindi, is indeed, an unsung heroine.

Relinquishing her rewarding white-collar job opportunities at such prestigious institutions like Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) and Tanzania National Parks (Tanapa) in early 2000s, Ms Mkindi opted to concentrate on agriculture

Surprisingly, agriculture has never been an attractive undertaking for most educated youths in Tanzania and other African countries.

This mentality has been entrenched in the education system that traditionally dooms the academically challenged to farming, otherwise known as the ‘poor man’s profession’.

However, Ms Mkindi, a talented young lady who was determined to go an extra mile to shape the future of Tanzania, couldn’t allow external peer pressure to determine her destiny.

As it happened, she started working as a mere extension officer at Tengeru flowers farm in Arusha, with a hidden agenda of turning the horticultural industry from subsistence to a commercial undertaking in the country.

Indeed, Ms Mkindi’s leadership potential through her ability to build teamwork led her way through the ranks and rise to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Tanzania Horticultural Association (Taha), an apex body that represents the multi-million-dollars industry.

When she came to the helm of Taha’s management, the horticulture industry was facing insurmountable challenges that ranged from unfavourable policies to wrong perceptions by communities who believed that the green houses and pesticide chemicals thwart the rains.

But, Ms Mkindi, complete with her Masters of Business Administration degree, backed with her persuasive skills and a smiling face in most of her time, worked hard against all odds, overcoming all the tides and indeed proved wrong her critics.

Now, thanks to her tireless efforts, the allure of profitable horticultural farming is prompting even urbanites to ditch white-collar jobs and trade their designer suits and shoes for overalls and gumboots.

Statistics speak volumes on Ms Mkindi’s ability. Way back in 2004 when she assumed the office, there were less than 50 horticultural farmers in the country with insignificant production volumes for export markets.

Ten years later, she had successfully brought together more than 15,000 - both large scale and smallholder farmers - into a single bloc with a common business oriented set of interests.

The renaissance of horticulture farming interest amongst the youth is down to efforts by Taha under Ms Mkindi’s regime, pushing for the adoption of better agronomic techniques that guarantee high yields, and creating market linkages for their produce.

As a result, the industry has grown in leaps and bounds - from northern Tanzania to southern highlands as well as from the Mainland to Zanzibar. Currently, the industry earns Tanzania over $400 million annually, up from $64 million in 2004.

With an enabling environment and massive involvement of mostly women and youth farming at the moment, only the sky is the limit, she believes. 

“Our target is to hit an annual export value of $1 billion in 2018 and double in two years’ time to reach a staggering $1.85 billion by 2020,” the Taha CEO says.

The figure also suggests that over one million Tanzanians would directly work in the horticulture industry by 2020 when the global demand for the sub-sector’s products would reach $153 billion. Currently, about 350,000 Tanzanians are engaged in horticultural activities.

Growing fast

With such achievements, Taha is now regarded as the fastest growing farmers’ organization in the region. It has thus become a darling for a number of development partners who provide overwhelming support to transform the industry.

The government of Tanzania and Development Partners such as USAID, BEST-AC, the Royal Netherlands Embassy and Finnish government are all involved in supporting horticultural projects in partnership with Taha, or at least, in part designed with the advice and participation of the association. 

As a result Taha is strategically placed to both influence the course development and advocate the reduction of constraints. 

It is under Ms Mkindi’s leadership that Taha, for the first time in history, brought the producers, traders, exporters and processors of all horticultural products – that is flowers, fruits, vegetables, spices, herbs and seeds – and created a single voice.

It is a voice of both large scale and small that resonates locally, nationally and internationally and with a common understanding that the challenge is about making agribusiness work in current business environment that is a result of years of Tanzania’s socialism background.

“Though, I still have a long way to go, but I’m happy that my dream of doing what would benefit all Tanzanians and the world at large, is slowly, but surely taking shape,” Ms Mkindi says. 

Probably, no one can explain Taha’s activities better than James Parsons, the managing Director of Africado Company, which exports avocadoes to the EU market.

“Taha has helped a lot in creating an enabling environment for the industry….the association works around the clock to maintain dialogue and good rapport with the government of Tanzania, development partners and farmers…I am grateful to Ms Mkindi for her incredible support in mobilising and building institutional capacity, facilitating an enabling environment, and other technical assistance,” he says. 

Taha also assisted farmers with standard compliance practices, addressing challenges with the local authorities, particularly on produce cess fee issues.

The body has also been able to help support investors in the horticulture industry to register crucial pesticides for pest and disease control in fruits.

Through its logistic firm, Taha Fresh, the association has been helpful to absorb the costly and time consuming cross-border non-tariff barriers to ease the burden to investors.

More recently, Taha successfully managed to persuade the government to include essential agricultural inputs in the value added tax exemption list in the new VAT Bill of 2014.

“Through Taha’s engagement with the government, important agricultural inputs have been included in the VAT-free list. I’m so grateful to the government for listening to us whenever policy challenges emerge” Ms Mkindi noted.