Posted on February, 10, 2017 at 11:02 am
Over 300 new farmers are this year set to join Serengeti Breweries Limited’s (SBL) agri-business project, a program that provides farmers with high quality seedlings free of charge, links them to financial institutions to acquire capital needed for large scale farming and supplies them with fertilizers and other farming implements.
According to SBL Corporate Relations Director John Wanyancha, the beer-maker’s ambitious project facilitates farmers growing maize, sorghum and millet in various parts of the country, enabling the company to increase its locally-sourced raw materials it uses in beer production. SBL has three breweries located in Dar es Salaam, Moshi and Mwanza respectively.
“To date, this project has benefited more than 100 core farmers across various regions including Arusha, Manyara, Mbeya, Kilimanjaro, Singida, Morogoro, Shinyanga and Dodoma who collectively cultivate around 20,000 acres,” Wanyancha said.
He added that once the additional farmers are incorporated into the project, they will benefit from over 300 tons of seedlings that the brewer provides to the beneficiaries annually, an equivalent to 300,000 kilograms.
Noting that this is the fourth year that the brewer is supporting the project, he explained that they had so far contributed over 1,000 tonnes (one million kilogrammes) of seedlings to farmers.
The benefits accrued by the 100 households so far under the project, he added, include, the purchase of tractors, boom sprayers as well as
improved economic conditions like constructing permanent houses and being able to take children to school.
According to Wanyancha, SBL has increased its locally-sourced raw materials to 10,000 tons within the past four years, which is equivalent
to 70 per cent of the total raw materials that the company uses in beer production annually.
Source: IPP Media