Growers are using fertiliser and extension services supplied by Yara
The company is the local branch of a Norwegian Yara multinational that supplies fertiliser worldwide.
“I have grown paddy for the last one decade and a half in this area.
The average harvest per acre has been 15 bags. Now I am harvesting between 30 and 35 bags in an acre. Inconceivable,” Anneth Moshi said excitedly.
She was talking to journalists who visited the area to investigate on reported positive change in paddy growing in that area.
Lekitatu is one of the major paddy growing areas in Arusha Region with emerging confident peasant cereal growers.
She attributed the sharp rise in productivity to the type of fertiliser supplied by Yara company and the extension services to the growers.
The latest World Bank report has named Tanzania, Uganda and Egypt as African countries with steady growing economies, on the verge of becoming middle-income economies.
“I am hopeful and confident now that this trade (farming) is paying and I will be part of those (Tanzanians) in the middle-income,” Moshi said adding that growers were anxious to see a small agro-industry being established in the area.
“This crop will take us into the industrial economy,” she said.
Joel Msangi also echoed Moshi’s views but said in the past growers were using fertilisers ignorantly. “Lack of education on the use of right fertilisers and when to use them; lack of knowledge on applying fertiliser on right soils undermine greatly our efforts. We were getting small harvests,” he said.
He also says that agronomists from Yara teach growers proper rice husbandry and guides them on the use of right fertiliser for their crops.
“Yara fertilisers have nutrients for paddy from a tender seedling to harvesting,” he adds.
