Posted on September, 1, 2023 at 05:11 am
THE World Food Programme (WFP) has provided modern agricultural equipment worth 304m/- to the government to deal with crop pests in the field so that agriculture can be productive in various areas of the country.
The Minister of Agriculture, Mr Hussein Bashe said that the equipment will facilitate the implementation of the concept of agriculture as a science as it will solve the challenges of farmers.
He made the remarks recently in Dodoma at the event of receiving a large drone that is capable of spraying pesticides on 20 hectares of land in one hour, along with 370 tablets.
Minister Bashe said that the equipment is very important in the agriculture sector because the drone is bigger than the one that the government owns, which is going to be a solution to the problems in the fields.
“I am very grateful to WFP for providing us with these devices, which are going to be distributed to Extension Officers for collecting various agricultural information,” said Bashe.
In addition, Mr Bashe said through the devices, they are going to test the fields of the youth in the Build a Better Tomorrow (BBT) programme to see if they have crop problems so that they can control them before they start farming.
“We are very grateful for the cooperation made by various stakeholders in agriculture to provide us with equipment, it shows how the stakeholders support the efforts of the government in promoting agriculture in this country,” said Bashe.
Adding, “Because we have had many drones, we have planned to establish a single centre for the management of those drones, including tracking information on crop pests,” said Bashe.
For her part, the WFP Resident Representative, Sarah Gibson said she was pleased with the cooperation given to her by the ministry while promising to continue cooperation with the government to ensure that they promote and develop agricultural activities.
“We will continue to cooperate with the government to ensure that agriculture makes more progress and this will support the government’s efforts to improve agriculture,” said Ms Gibson.
Acting Director of Tanzania Plant Health and Pesticides (TPHPA) Prof Joseph Ndunguru said the equipment has come at the right time considering farmers are heading to the farming season.
He said farmers should do productive farming that will raise them economically.
Source: Daily News