Posted on August, 28, 2019 at 10:04 am
ZANZIBAR President Dr Ali Mohamed Shein has underscored the need for the ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources, Livestock and Fisheries to invest heavily in research to find permanent solutions of the challenges facing the key sectors. He made the remarks during the meeting to receive the implementation of the 2019/20 work plan from the ministry.
Dr Shein said that investing in research especially in key sectors which touches food issues was inevitable thus calling on the ministry to work on issues.
He called upon the the ministry to work closely with the agriculture institutions to achieve the goal.
“Agriculture has a great contribution in blue economy and due to that, our government is working to establish a special department to coordinate and supervise blue economy development,” he said.
For his part, the Isles’ Second Vice-President, Amb Seif Ali Iddi emphasised on the investment in production of baby fish (larvae) to enable more people engage in the business.
Amb Iddi also underscored the need for the establishment of chicks production project to help the traders who have been importing the chicks from abroad.
“Another area which needs more investment is the production of spices. This has great market demand inside and outside the country,” he added.
Dr Maua Abeid Daftari, the President’s advisor commended the ministry’s commitment to also invest in sunflower farming something which is going to benefit a number of farmers.
Earlier, minister Mmanga Mjawiri said that the ministry is well prepared to improve the agriculture sector by making it more beneficial to farmers and the country at large.
“Among the priorities in the year 2019/20 is to merge the Kizimbani Agriculture Training Institute (KATI) and the State University of Zanzibar (SUZA) as well as procurement of two ships,” he said.
He highlighted some of the achievements in 2018/19 fiscal year as increase of rice production, clove seedlings, launch of the coconut production and development campaign as well as construction of irrigation infrastructures among others.
Reading the ministry’s work plan, Permanent Secretary Mariam Juma Abdalla Saadalla said the availability of funds to finance various projects has been one of the pushing factors to the development of the sectors.
She said that in this fiscal year, the ministry is well prepared to make sure that key sectors of agriculture, fisheries, livestock are developed including protecting the country’s natural resources.
“Among the projects to be implemented include construction of modern storage facilities, procurement of fish ships, construction of fish processing factories and fish dams in both Unguja and Pemba,” she added.
Source: IPP Media