I have been fortunate enough to work in both the agriculture and mining sectors, but a significant amount has been in the agriculture sector. I have noticed a significant gap in initiatives aimed at helping artisanal and small-scale miners (ASM) compared to those aimed at small-scale farmers in the agriculture sector. It doesn’t take long to see that there is a knowledge gap between the two groups (not referring to formal schooling), as well as differences in access to capital and finance. A quick Google search will show many organizations making an impact in agriculture, but only a handful for ASM – and 90% of those organizations don’t even have functioning websites. Whether this is a coincidence or not is a question for later, but for now, I’d like to share my opinion on what the mining industry can learn from the agricultural sector to better assist ASM. I will limit my discussion on ASM dealing in metallic minerals.
Adoption of technology: The agricultural sector has fully embraced technology. Numerous startups, tech incubators, and machine manufacturers are now offering tech-based solutions to farmers. These solutions have given farmers access to a wide range of services at their fingertips. With these technologies, farmers can easily aggregate their produce, access daily market prices, and benefit from a host of other solutions. On the other hand, the adoption of technology in the mining sector in Tanzania is still low, it’s not that there’s a lack of talent who can help tackle some of the pain points for miners but it’s the sector players who are not encouraging such initiatives, it would be nice if we had a mining hackathon supported by some of the players (it’s happening in other mining countries, why not here).
Market linkage and Investors meetings: Agriculture associations are notorious for making marketing linkage and investor conferences and events, I have personally attended a number of them as an exhibitor, panelist, or just a visitor whereby I ended up making some noteworthy connections, this is not the case when it comes to the mining sector, majority of the associations are focused on the same big players or academicians who end up discussing theoretical issues that have little to no impact to the ASM.
Value chain-specific training: In my experience with ASM, I haven’t encountered initiatives focused on developing the capacity of miners in their respective value chains. The mining sector should establish capacity-building programs that target specific mineral value chains and involve all players involved in the chain. For instance, it is crucial to involve brokers and equipment suppliers in capacity-building programs for gold ASM since they play an essential role in the business.
There are a number of solutions that can be implemented to better improve the ASM in Tanzania but coming up with mineral-specific capacity-building training should be given priority to better improve the livelihoods of those involved.
