Posted on September, 2, 2019 at 10:14 am
AGRICULTURE Minister Japhet Hasunga has called upon Tanzanians to fully exploit the readily available food crop markets in the continent, saying many African countries are in dire need of food. The minister made the call in Dar es Salaam yesterday when opening the meeting of traders in cereal crops.
During the meeting, the minister cited Zimbabwe as one of the countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, with demand of 800,000 tonnes of food.
Mr Hasunga said traders now have no excuse not to trade in crops for the government has scrapped several taxes with more efforts still being made to improve business and investment environment.
The minister said another area that the government is working to improve business environment is review of Agriculture Policy of 2013 whose review process is expected for completion by the end of this year.
The government was also in the process to enact the Agriculture Law, which will indicate how best to supervise the sector, including protecting the land that has been set aside for agricultural activities.
He added that the government recently introduced crops insurance in efforts to protect farmers’ investments in case of any calamity, mostly drought, flood and destructive insects.
Mr Hasunga called up on investors to engage especially in irrigation farming, which will guarantee constant flow of farm outputs and enable them to maintain their local and international markets.
According Minister Hasunga, Tanzania has 44 million acres for cultivation, with 29.4 million acres suitable for irrigation farming.
He added that there are lots of large and small water bodies to support irrigation farming but they haven’t been fully utilised.
To make agriculture more productive, the government has also introduced permanent farmers’ registration book, which will be stating one’s location of farm, kind of crops cultivated and farm size.
The move will serve in among others, serving the farmers through supply of farm inputs as well as having proper statistics on farm products and their geographical areas.
Deputy Minister for Land, Housing and Human Settlement Development Angelina Mabula said there was need of setting special areas for agriculture, instead of random cultivation.
She also advised that all confiscated undeveloped lands be distributed to investors in the agriculture sector.
“The ministry will immediately issue title deeds for any area set for agriculture. The uses of such lands should not be changed but remain for farming activities forever,” she stressed.
Ladder Food Supply Executive Director Hope Masaka challenged the government to remove middlemen—Dalali—from the crop marketing system, saying they have been disturbing the crop pricing.
“We fail to maintain our customers’ network because some of clients do run away when there is an increase of food price,” she said.
Source: Daily News