The HDC vision in practice

Vision of improved Food Security  

Vision of a Green Corridor from Mt Hanang to Lake Basotu  

Vision of research as a tool for development  

Vision of ownership and responsibility  

The late Dr O. H. E. Olsen, Medical Director of HLH during a long time, had a vision that improved farming in the area would improve the food security and that HLH could make a contribution to this by setting an example and by training and educating the youth in better farming methods.  He had also the vision that the hospital could have an income from running a big farm.

Realizing that food security is sustained by better income and by freedom from charity; e.g. donations to “food for work” etc, economic development of the local communities became a major challenge for Haydom Development Company Ltd. The major contribution HDC Ltd can make to this development is what can be described as:

HDC was developing a policy for entrepreneurship, encouraging small enterprises that would need micro-finance services (see mid column here); hence the proposal for inviting such savings and credit institutions to participate. 150 families and local church-communities participated (2006) in the “Jirani Bora” project. Participants were organized in groups of each 5 families, ready for micro-finance services. Each group had an offer to participate in the production at Mulbadaw with 300 working days and for that take out wheat equivalent to the yield on 5 ha . It included the local community as a stakeholder and it gave the group a starting capital of up to 1.5 million Shs or 300 000 Shs each.  With the wheat prices of 2008 it would have been more than twice this amount.  It is a tragedy for these families that this project was not followed up as planned.  It appears that “food for work” and charity is the main policies of those who by force took over Mulbadaw 12^th August 2006.

Thousands of local breeds of cattle are every year invading the agricultural land, causing overgrazing, compaction of soils, reduced wheat yields, contributing to serious erosion, floods, silting and pollution of Lake Basotu . The condition of the cattle is often very bad towards the end of the dry season. There is a dramatic need of change to something better for people and cattle.

HDC Ltd proposed late 2005 that it could work with district authorities and other organizations in establishing a green corridor with permanent vegetation with improved and well managed pastures and fodder production for improved cattle husbandry, dams for harvesting and storing water, reforestation etc. Preliminary contacts were made (with UNDP, donor group for environmental projects) for discussions about possible financing of such a project.  The illegal occupation of the HDC properties at Mulbadaw and CMSC on 12^th August 2006 put a stop to this initiative. 

HDC Ltd together with Sokoine Agricultural University (SUA) in Morogoro and the University of Life Science (UMB) Aas in Norway embarked on a project introducing a sustainable management system for animal production; a “cut and carry” system that does not cause overgrazing and ensures proper feeding of the animals. 

The research project aimed at improving wheat yields was established together with the wheat breeder Dr Ndondi, at Selian Agricultural Research Institute, SARI. The results of the work indicated a potential of a 50% increase in yields at Mulbadaw by making better use of available genetic materials.  There is little evidence that those who took over Mulbadaw on 12^th August 2006 understand the value of research as a tool for crop development; they have not employed any trained agriculturist and not initiated any crop research.  HDC Ltd is still working with SARI for crop improvement.

HDC Ltd acknowledges that responsibility comes with ownership and a heart for maintaining and taking care of property.  All operators of tractors and other farm machinery participated in an “on-the-job” training that included renovation and overhaul of tractors that were regarded as scrap by the late Dr. Olsen in 2004. The result was that “the scrap” by January 2006 was 10 tractors operating on the farm, sufficient for cultivation of 4 000ha ( 10 000 acres ). Tractors more than 20 years old became as new and the operators who had made them “new” were, with good reasons, proud of the achievement.

HDC Ltd offered also to rebuild tractors belonging to private farmers; with financing from owners or other sources.  A farmer’s widow inherited “scrap” similar to the “scrap” found at Mulbadaw.  She was offered assistance from a private source in Norway for buying necessary spares and she participated in making a tractor out the “scrap,”

The unilateral physical take over of Mulbadaw Farm and CMSC on 12^th August 2006, on demand from Friends of Haydom in Norway , halted a much needed development and caused heavy economic losses to both Haydom Development Company Ltd and to Haydom Lutheran Hospital . 

I am not convinced that such “charity” is a sustainable strategy for the development needed; I rather suspect it undermines development of the ownership and the responsibilities needed for sustainable development and food security.