Posted on January, 31, 2019 at 08:28 am
THE Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) has reaffirmed its commitment to train farmers on modern farming, livestock keeping and poultry farming to achieve middle income and industrial economy by 2025.
Speaking to agricultural stakeholders in Unguja Town recently, SAGCOT Chief Executive Officer Geoffrey Kirenga asked Zanzibaris to shun traditional in favour of modern farming.
“Zanzibar has no reason whatsoever to import food because the environment here is conducive for farming and livestock keeping…what matters is the readiness to learn on livestock keeping and modern farming,” he said.
Mr Kirenga further said that for many years Zanzibar has incurred costs in importing food stuffs particularly chicken meat, something that could easily be reversed through motivating people to embark on commercial farming.
“The chicken market here is huge and people should use this opportunity to invest on poultry farming and raise people’s standards of living and economic growth,” he said.
He called on the people who have already benefited from trainings on poultry farming to practice in a bid to go modern and increase efficiency.
“Silverlands Tanzania has invested heavily on the production of poultry food in the SAGCOT zone, therefore we will continue to collaborate in educating farmers on the modern farming,” he said.
He added that in the partnership with Silverlands Tanzania, SAGCOT has a major task of insuring that there is enough poultry feed and training on modern farming has been conducted in Iringa, Njombe and Mbeya regions where major achievements have been registered.
“We also want Zanzibar to shun dependence on ordering chicken from abroad and embark on modern poultry farming, this is key in employment creation,” he said.
The Silverlands Tanzania Marketing Manager Ahmed Abdulrahman said the company was committed to train more poultry farmers to expand the scope of production.
“We will ensure that all the important needs of farmers, including supply of chicks, chicken food and medicines, are met,” he said.
Source: Daily News